


When We Fall

by cloverfield



Category: Stardust (2007), Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Battlefield Violence, Blood, Fai is Amazed by Everything, Falling Stars, Fantasy, Going on a Quest, Inhuman characters, KuroFai Olympics, Kurogane Does Not Have Time For This, Lashings of Blood and Gore, M/M, Stardust - Freeform, Team Fantasy, Tomoyo Knows Things, Unresolved Sexual Tension, olymfic, various CLAMP cameos - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-03-17 21:56:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 42,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3545180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloverfield/pseuds/cloverfield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fantasy v.s. Future Olympics fic; in which a young man seeks to lift a curse, a fallen star seeks only to return to heaven, and the solution to both these problems is simpler than you might think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the 2013 KuroFai Olympics over on the DW kuroxfai comm for Team Fantasy; my prompt was 'stars go out tonight', and the whole contest was fantastic. Make sure you check out the fic archives, there's so much brilliant fic there. I couldn't complete this fic on time due to a nerve and tendon injury I sustained in my dominant hand (that still gives me twinges to this day if I'm not careful), but the bulk of it is complete. Note to self: writing so much in so little a time is not good for you.
> 
> It's still a WIP, but I'm posting it here gradually in the hopes that it will spur me on to finish the final chapter and the obligatory porny epilogue.
> 
> Also, while this fic isn't particularly high rated, I'd say it just squeaks in under a T-rating, and there is a bit of blood and gore about even if it's not graphic. So please keep that in mind.

The shackles were tight enough to shorten his stride by half, so when the gauntleted hand on his back shoved him roughly forwards over the steps approaching the dais, the chain strung between his ankles caught and sent Kurogane sprawling to his knees- and with his hands bound there was nothing he could do to break his fall. His cheek smacked against the stone floor as he landed on his elbows, his bindings yanking tight; the tiles were mostly smooth but still rough enough to scrape skin, and the impact sent pain ringing through his skull. Something wet touched his top lip, salty when it reached his tongue; his nose bloodied and bleeding freely as he tried to raise his head.  
  
“Stay down,” came the command. Kurogane said nothing, just breathed as evenly as he could beneath the iron chains wound tight about his chest and blinked back the shadows that flickered at the corners of his eyes. His bones creaked beneath the weight of his bindings, shoulders bowed and heavy; even without the tip of the sword resting cool and sharp on the back of his neck he could scarcely look up.  
  
“Oh, Kurogane...” It was the sharp little gasp before his name more than anything else that spoke of how upset the princess really was, her young voice shaking a little even as it swelled with authority. “The chains. Take them off.”  
  
The guard behind him shifted uneasily, a droplet of blood welling beneath the point of his sword as it slipped just slightly against bared skin. “Your Highness, the danger-”  
  
“I do believe that was an order, captain,” she said in crisp response. “You will remove those chains or I will have you removed from your post.” The sullen silence that met this demand was broken only by the clank of metal as the locks binding the chains about his body were grudgingly released, falling loose and snaking to the floor in heavy, jangling ropes. Kurogane would have groaned in relief but for the metallic taste in his mouth; blood painted the inside of his teeth from a blow to the face when the guards had caught him, and he would not give the man that glowered at his bowed back the satisfaction.  
  
The princess smiled, and it was sad around the edges. “Now leave us. Kurogane and I need to talk.”  
  
A sword rattled in its scabbard as the guard’s hand fell to his hip, reaching for the weapon in an act of ingrained shock, and even though Kurogane couldn’t see the look on the man’s face, he could feel the reproach radiating like a thousand angry needles pricking his skin. “With all due respect Your Highness, His Majesty the King has ordered me to protect you from anyone that could harm you.”  
  
“Yes, that’s very nice, but what the King doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” said the princess sweetly, and though her smile was pleasant, the warning spark in bright green eyes wasn’t. “And Kurogane will not hurt  _me_. You may be my guard, good sir, but you are also my subject- and bound to obey me by laws of court and country. So if you would be so kind...?”  
  
Even the click of boot heels against each other as the guard bowed low sounded disapproving. “Your Highness.” Footsteps echoed loudly through the hollow room, ringing against the stone as he departed, and when they were alone, the princess’ smile faded.  
  
“If I’d known you were bound like this, I would have called for you earlier,” murmured Sakura, Crown Princess of the Country of Clow, and the sadness in her voice was almost painful- but beneath that sadness there was a determination; her steps down from the dais were delicate but purposeful, and the hand she dropped to rest atop his head was not at all hesitant. “I am so sorry.”  
  
“Stop that,” said Kurogane, the words a rasp. He was thirsty, parched even –it had been a long time indeed since the last time anyone had offered him anything to drink- and the dryness of his mouth made his words harsher than they normally were. “If it weren’t for you, I’d be sleeping in the dungeon. Again.” He blotted his nose with the edge of his sleeve; red soaked quickly into the rough-spun fabric.  
  
Sakura frowned at the sight, the expression painting a delicate crinkle across her forehead. “I will speak to the guards. It’s not right that they punish you for something you can’t control.”  
  
For a moment, the world flickered around its edges –black and blue and black again, like smoke, like drowning; blurry and dark and terrible- but Kurogane sighed, as slow and as steadily as he could, counting the seconds as his breath left him and holding the count as long as he could. “No, Highness,” he managed, and the words stuck in his throat, too sharp to swallow. “This is the way things are. They were right to chain me.” Kurogane didn’t like it –who would?- but he understood it, and if it wasn’t his fault, it was still his responsibility.  
  
He would not lose himself again.   
  
“It might be the way things are, but it is not the way things  _should_  be,” insisted Sakura, and the hand on his head lifted as she crossed her arms. “We did not take you in amongst the refugees from Nihon to let you languish in the dungeon. You have done no wrong, and I will  _not_  let you be imprisoned again.”  
  
It was hard to speak in the face of that determination. There was a glint in Sakura’s gaze that reminded him in no small way of the polish of a shield held to protect those behind it, or the sheen of a sword fresh-drawn from the sheath as one headed into battle... or even the look on his own mother’s face when she faced down the demons that had come for them, her head high and her hands steady as the darkness itself looked her in the eye and reached for her with claws outstretched.  
  
But his mother was dead, and she was not the only one.  
  
“People have died, Princess.” The words fought against his speaking them, bottled tight in his throat. “Because of me. Because of what I am.” It was the truth, unmistakeable and as undeniably real as the gravestones of the men sent to subdue him, as the madness that danced as flickering shadows in the corners of his vision.  
  
Sakura’s face softened, her eyes sorrowful. “Because of your curse,” she corrected gently. “We couldn’t have known what demon blood does- no one had even  _seen_  demons before, let alone survived being drenched from head to foot in the blood of the ones they had slain. And when you came to us, in the arms of Clow’s soldiers, the only living soul from your village and almost dead from your wounds... no one could have predicted what would happen when the demons found you once more.”  
  
Kurogane said nothing, merely waited; his own past was not new to him after all, and Sakura would not have brought it up without good reason- and true enough it wasn’t long before said reason came spilling out in a tumble of panicked words. Princess or not, sweet-hearted girl with a soul of steel or not, she was still young and impatient. “The court wants you exiled,” she blurted, hands dropping to grab nervous fistfuls of her voluminous skirt. “My brother may be the King, but he can’t help but bow to pressure from the nobles- not after Lord Kudo’s son died. He was the captain of the guard, and-”  
  
“-and I killed him,” finished Kurogane. It was not something he’d intended to do; he’d meant nothing more than to pay his debt to the palace, earn the bed and board he was given in the same generosity shared with all the refugees from the ruins of his homeland. The skills his father had taught him since he was old enough to hold a hammer were valuable here, and the knowledge of the woods and mountains he’d learned at his mother’s breast no small thing either; he’d found his place amongst the craftsmen in the town that crowded up against the castle walls as an apprentice to a smith, and spent his spare time tracking game in the forest. It was not the life he’d been born into, but it was a life he had made for himself out of the ashes of everything he’d known, and it was  _his_ ; while it was not perfect, it was enough.  
  
But then the demons had come at night, flowing in on the back of the falling twilight and falling upon the people of Clow in a frenzy of insatiable hunger- and when the demons came so too the madness that drove him to battle-fury. It didn’t matter that Kurogane had saved the lives of some three dozen or more of the townsfolk that lived on the forest’s edges, stopped their homes from being destroyed and slaughtered fast and furiously the creatures that poured out of the cracks in the world; it didn’t matter that it was only the demons that he fought, the shrieking beasts that blocked out the night sky with their writhing shadows and swallowed all the starlight, or that the madness that possessed him was not something born of his own soul but instead from the black blood that had seeped into his wounds in the attack that had killed the people of his own village to the last man, woman and child nearly five years before-  
  
-only that twenty guards had been sent to stop him and less than half had come back alive.  
  
“You need to get out of the palace,” said Sakura urgently, her young face pinched with worry. “Leave tonight, and make sure you are unseen. Tomorrow morning is the first day of the new moon, and the date on which King Touya holds audience. It is there that Lord Kudo will ask for your death, claiming that your curse makes you too dangerous to let live- and I would not have you executed for a crime that is not yours to be blamed for.”  
  
“They all died on my sword, Your Highness,” said Kurogane dully. “That noble’s son, too.” It was the truth, after all; even if his mind had been clouded by the sick beat drumming in his head, his vision swimming under inky, icy waves of blackness as the beast inside him screamed for blood, it had been his hand that drove the blade, and his responsibility the lives that spilt across the dirt in great gushing rivers. And when it was noble blood that soaked into the hungry earth the consequences were so much more dire- if it hadn’t been for the King’s own mercy, he’d be swinging from the gallows by now.  
  
“The High Priest himself declared you innocent under the eyes of the gods, a victim as much as those whose lives ended so unfortunately. I’ve known Yukito since I was a little girl, and I choose to believe him. Besides,” said the princess softly, “I know  _you_. You’re not the kind of man to take a life recklessly, and while I mourn for the ones lost-” and she would, because that was how Sakura  _was_ ; she would mourn for those men and mean it, her sorrow sincere and her heart aching for their families in genuine grief, as much as she would for anyone she knew who died, “-I would mourn just the same if I were to lose my friend.” She smiled down at him sadly. “If you hadn’t found me three years ago, lost in the forest when my horse threw me and wandering hurt and alone, I wouldn’t be here today, Kurogane.”  
  
“That was luck more than anything else,” objected Kurogane, bowing his head awkwardly. “I didn’t know that the crying noise scaring the deer was a lost princess; it wasn’t like I was  _looking_  for you. Besides, your brother had the castle guard combing the woods- they would have found you sooner or later.” He’d only been minding his business, trying to trap a young buck he’d been stalking all morning when he’d stumbled upon the young girl, her face muddied and her dress torn, one shoe missing and an ankle swelling purple like fruit on the vine; Kurogane had guessed she might have been noble by her clothes, but he hadn’t thought anything of it, carrying her back to the edge of the forest on his back with barely a begrudging thought for the venison he’d miss for supper. He had not expected to be approached by her guards on the fringes of the trees and taken before the King, to be rewarded for his service to the crown with a purse of gold coins he’d been living off ever since, nor to find himself named a ‘Companion of the Princess’ and praised for his heroics when he’d only done the same for her as he would have done for anyone.  
  
“So you see why you must go- if not for your sake, then for mine.  _Please_ , Kurogane,” she pleaded, and it was the impassioned tone of her voice that made him finally look up. Before he could even open his mouth to argue, she reached for his hand, taking it in her own, smaller one and gripping his fingers firmly. There was a strength in that hand that her dainty looks hid, the same strength in the green gaze she pinned him with. “You must leave Clow, and journey to the Country of Jade... within the Spirit Markets, there dwells the Witch of the Moon. She is as wise as she is powerful, and if anyone knows how to lift your curse and clear your name it will be her.” The firmness of her grip was matched only by her tone, and Kurogane knew he had no choice but to agree; the look in those eyes suggested that if he did not, he’d probably wake sometime in the middle of the night to find himself already on a horse with saddlebags packed.  
  
So he nodded in acceptance, merely bowing his head –she was a princess, after all, and he wouldn’t do his parents dishonour by forgetting the manners he had been taught- and his voice when he found it was rough. “Yes, Your Highness.”  
  
“Good,” said Sakura brightly, letting go of his hand and standing up straight; the smile she fixed him with was dazzling. “I cannot give you all the help I want to, but I can give you  _time_ \- and I’ve taken the liberty of having your bags packed and waiting for you in the Clover Inn at the edge of town. You’ll find enough supplies there to last you to Jade, and enough witnesses to swear you rode off in the opposite direction.” She brushed past him, crossing the floor with such speed that the hems of her skirt swept the stone in a silken rush. “If you leave now and go by foot, straight through the forest, you should get enough distance between you and Clow that come tomorrow morning they’ll have no hope of finding you.” Her hands curled about a pull-rope that dangled from the ceiling and she tugged firmly, but instead of a bell sounding, the heavy tapestries against the wall parted like curtains, exposing a dimly-lit tunnel set into the dark stone walls.  
  
“Through here,” said Sakura excitedly. “None of the guards know about this passage, only me and my ladies-in-waiting- and I know that Hikaru, Fuu and Umi would never betray me. You must hurry, Kurogane!”  
  
Goaded on by the urgency in her voice, Kurogane staggered to his feet; blood rushed to his limbs in a painful tingle of pins-and-needles now that he was free of his chains, but his steps were steady all the same, and it wasn’t long before he was half in the shadowed mouth of the hallway, looking down at the princess who was doing her best to save his life.  
  
“Your Highness, I...” He trailed off, unsure of what he could even say in the face of such faith in him.  
  
But Sakura just smiled up at him, craning up as high as she could on tip-toes to brush her fingertips against his cheek. “There’s no time. Go to Jade, find the Witch of the Moon, and have your curse lifted so you can come back home to us. I’m going to miss you,” she added, and the flickering firelight of the touches could not account for the wavering shine in green eyes, “but I know this is for the best.”  
  
Kurogane nodded brusquely, stepping away and into the tunnel, taking a deep breath as he was swallowed up by its shadows. The Clover Inn was on the other side of town, and no matter how far this secret passageway stretched, he still had a fair distance to travel; he needed to get as much of it as he could underfoot before the guards discovered his absence. His steps were quick and determined, ringing against the stone, and as he walked down the gentle slope, Sakura’s soft voice called out behind him.  
  
“Don’t worry, Kurogane- everything will be all right, I just  _know_  it!”  
  


* * *

The princess was true to her word, as she always was. The mouth of the long tunnel led out from the palace and into the Clover Inn’s basement, where he was met by Caldina, the sloe-eyed bar-mistress; her hands were full with his heavy leather satchel and the strap of his sword slung over her shoulder. As tall as she was, the blade was taller- the tip of the sheath trailed against the cobblestone pavers of the basement with a dull scraping sound as she handed it over.  
  
“But how? No one knew I left the palace,” Kurogane had asked, strapping the blade across his back before wrapping himself in the heavy woollen cloak she offered.  
  
“It’s well known that Princess Sakura loves the little birds that tweet so sweetly on her windowsills,” Caldina had replied, winking at him. “It’s  _less_  well known that those little birds do more than merely tweet, Kurogane. The Clover Inn is only one of many roosts where our dear princess’ birdies come home to rest... and if they should be bearing little messages on their oh-so-dainty ankles,  _well_ ,” she sighed gustily, “I’ve never been one opposed to a little light reading.” She grinned then, her teeth brilliantly white against her dusky skin. “Now if I were you, I’d get moving,  _boy_ \- you’ve a long way to go.”  
  
That had been several hours ago now; as much as he’d bristled at being called ‘boy’, Kurogane had taken her advice all the same and left without a backwards glance for the decoys riding off on the finest horses in the Clover Inn’s stables, all ridden by local boys, each one well-paid –and well-watered at that; the hazy green liquor the Clover Inn produced was the finest in the country and potent to boot, leaving more than one rider swaying in his saddle- for their trouble. He’d made for the forest as quick as he could; keeping his pace brisk and his face hooded as he travelled through alleyways and outskirts, but even veiled by rain-heavy clouds the sun had been well into its burning descent towards the horizon by the time he exited the city for the green expanse that fringed its borders.   
  
Sometime after sundown, it rained; it was the wet season after all, and it was hardly the first time it had done so. Kurogane walked a few hours in the midst of it, the sky hanging low with the heavy clouds that had rolled in with the twilight and water dripping through the hood of his cloak to trickle tiny cool fingers down the back of his neck- but the cloth was thick enough to shield him from most of it, and the trees did the rest. It wasn’t like it was the first time he’d spent a night in the wet forest and probably wouldn’t be the last. Besides, there was something peaceful about the sound of rain hitting leaves, all the branches of the trees hanging down, bowed with the weight of the water falling on them; the air around him smelled green and clean and  _new_ , and it wasn’t unpleasant even if it was cool and damp, night air fogging moist and white between his teeth with each breath.  
  
The heavens were still dark with clouds even after the rain stopped. What he could see of the sky through the broken canopy was a dense and rolling charcoal-grey, the moon hidden and the stars absent, their brilliant light dimmed to a pearly sheen through the thickness of the thunderheads building over the mountains- even stepping out from the cover of the trees did nothing much to brighten his surroundings, the world around him dark and cool and wet, a night that most would consider best spent beneath the blankets in a warm bed.  
  
That option wasn’t his though, and even if there was an inn nearby, he wouldn’t stop; the princess’ gift of a head-start would not last forever and he had a fair distance to go to make it to the Spirit Markets. Hence slogging through the dark, wet forest as a short cut. It was a six-day walk to Jade, but if he pushed himself he could make it in three.  
  
The trees were thinning now, the space between their thick trunks widening. The breeze tickled against his face as Kurogane walked, his careful steps steady and sure even as he moved with speed across slippery leaf-litter, each footfall barely audible in the surrounding silence- and it  _was_  silence, the night-sounds of the forest around him having fallen quiet long again and the calmness of his surroundings still and eerie in a way no forest ever really was. Even the steady drip of water from leaves sounded muted, as though heard from some great distance, and Kurogane felt his steps slow to a stop of their own accord.  
  
Even if he was young, he wasn’t stupid; he knew this feeling –the hair on the back of his neck standing up, the hollow feeling in his belly, the sudden and dizzying sensation that he was three steps away from some great and terrible precipice- almost as well as he knew the grip of his sword, and it was to his sword that his hand fell now, fingers curling tight around the dark and supple leather that wrapped the hilt. It was a comfort in a way few things were now, not with how the night birds had fallen silent and the twisting paths that wove through the trees were absent of both predators and prey; he’d been a hunter for long enough to know what came next.  
  
In the corners of his eyes, shadows flickered.  
  
Kurogane sucked in a harsh breath, closing his eyes and gritting his teeth.  _Not now. Not now._  
  
...But it was useless to wish for it, wasn’t it? Because this demon-blooded curse wasn’t something he could wish away by force of will alone; if it were, he would have been free of it the morning after that first night, where woken sick and shaking, swearing by the name of every god he knew that he’d never let it pull him down into the darkness again. If it were just will power that could free it from those icy bindings, then Kurogane would have nothing to fear from himself- but it wasn’t and he did and still the curse lingered. The dull cold ache in his bones, the one that never really left him, was proof enough of that.   
  
Kurogane shook his head briskly, forcing his thoughts from their morbid path and his hand from the hilt of his sword. Standing here with his head full of dark clouds wasn’t going to get him to Jade any quicker- and what did he care if he had to travel through the same woods the demons came from? He’d already survived them twice, once as a child and once again as a man- and that time he’d slain more of the cold-blooded beasts than he could care to count. If he was cautious and quiet and kept an eye on his surroundings at all times, he was hardly likely to be ambushed- and even if he  _was_ , he had a better chance of fighting his way out of it than any other living soul in Clow, especially with this blade.  
  
No, he was not going to stand here quaking in his boots, not now his blood was up. Even if the only thing he could do was keep moving, then he was going to do  _exactly_  that-  
  
He felt it before he heard it, and even then he saw it first. Kurogane looked up in reflexive shock as the sky itself seemed to shake, a building glow rippling through the clouds above like the tide pulling in –unstoppable and frothing with light and sound as it rolled across the horizon in one great flash that scorched red shadows across the inside of his eyelids, his eyes slamming shut a scarce second before he was blinded. Beneath his feet the ground rumbled, and it was like an indrawn breath- tense with a sudden anticipation that left him unsteady on his feet, and he was forced to grab onto a nearby tree for support as he struggled to see through the stinging tears that welled unbidden and the earth itself quaked.  
 _  
That_  was when he heard it, drowning out all other sound in a throbbing pulse of noise almost too low to perceive before building to a trembling, high-pitched crescendo that it hurt to hear; the sound –the crack, the boom, the whistling wail that sounded like, of all the things in the world it could have sounded like, a kettle boiling- echoed loud and sharp across the night sky, silence falling before it; even over the pounding in Kurogane’s ears he could hear it,  _feel_  it, a buzzing in his bones that ached in his teeth and made his eyes water anew as he looked up into a shattering sky.  
 _  
Lightning_  was his first thought, but he knew it was wrong even as it flashed through him; the scorching streak of blazing light was too slow for that even as his gaze tracked its blistering path over the heavens, and the only thunder here was his heartbeat as it drummed in his chest.  _A star_... yes, it could be nothing else; a star, falling,  _flaming_ , a thousand colours bleeding from its burning heart, shimmering across the darkness in glittering veils of stardust as the heavy clouds boiled in its wake and it plummeted towards the earth.  
  
The star fell in a wide, brilliant arc that cleared the mountains cleanly, rolling over the skyline in a gleaming arc that none the less headed relentlessly downwards- and northwards, crossing the path the princess had laid before him. Directly through the same forest where demons were known to lurk.  
  
Without thinking  _what_  or  _how_  or even  _why_ , he started to run.  
  


* * *

Branches whipped at his face, pulling at his hair and clothes, but Kurogane didn’t stop; there was a chill in the air now, his breath steaming as he ran, and the darkness rolling thick through the forest told him the demons were close. It was a cloudy night, after all; no moon, no stars- perfect conditions for the shadow-spawned beasts to force their way onto the earth with no light to stop them.  
  
It was on such a night that the village of Suwa, founded on the banks of the river with which it shared a name, had fallen.  
  
The dangerous grin that spread over his face was not one Kurogane could control, something that rose with the darkness inside him, his vision swimming with blackness and a darkling glitter that sawed across his line of sight in scattered bursts; his sword sang from its sheath, cloak snapping around his arms as he loosed it, and when the impact came –a shaking  _ **whoomphhhhkkkraaAAKK--!!**_  that rattled him right down to the core- the world shook around him in bone-quaking bursts that knocked down trees and shot a quiver through the earth beneath his racing feet. It cracked across the ground like lightning, great shivering shudders that cleaved through earth and stone in splintering lines and chasms; Kurogane leapt over one and let the momentum take him down over a ledge, his boots hitting slick grass and sending him skidding down the slope that met him at the base of the jump, his sword steady and shining in his hand even as he shook with adrenaline.  
  
There was a burning light in the distance, not too far through the trees- it was closer than it looked, in fact, that searing brightness dimmed by the writhing shadows that poured towards him, reaching out in twisting eldritch shapes that clawed at the sky as though to pull it down even as Kurogane found his footing at last. Laughter bubbled in his chest but he clamped his jaw shut, refused to let it out – _he was not so far gone as that, not yet, not ever_\- and everything slowed to a treacle-thick blur as he brought his sword around in a great cleaving swing, severing the first creeping beast clean in two in a splash of ichor so icy cold it steamed as it hit the ground.  
  
Four demons died in as many heartbeats, each slash finding its home in that dark and twisted mess; the creatures flowed around him like a river, carving great gouts of wood and earth as they split, reformed, and surged for him again- but it wasn’t enough, and another five fell in a flurry of stabbing thrusts that felled them in quick succession. Black blood slicked his blade, painted it from point to hilt, dripping in great splatters as he swung it back for more, and Kurogane felt nothing like fear even as the demons before him rebounded once more. There were easily thirty or more left, their flowing movements too quick to count, but he didn’t care- the more there were, the more he could kill, and the quicker the ache in his chest would die down into nothingness.  
 _  
Come on_ , he thought, the words roaring inside his head; they pounded against the inside of his skull, burst in dark flashes behind his eyelids.  _Come at me!_ His breath steamed in white clouds, straining through his teeth; his chest heaved, his arms the only part of him that didn’t shake as he struck again and again and  _again_ , each blow another death, another rush of blood that sizzled over the ground, blackening grass and freezing stone that crunched beneath his boots.  
  
Kurogane was drawing closer to that burning glow, nearing the edge of that crater –and it  _was_  a crater, deeper and wider than any quarry he’d ever seen, its sloping sides a crumble of rock and smouldering glass- and the quick glance he shot behind him to judge the distance nearly cost him his head as massive jaws snapped at him, teeth closing a scarce inch from his face as he jerked back in shock. The demons, what few of them were left, shrieked and writhed and before his eyes seemed to  _flow_  upwards, melting into one massive creature that towered above him, clearing the tree-line with ease as it rose up high.   
  
He’d never seen that before.  
  
“Hah,” panted Kurogane, the point of his sword dropping almost to the ground; both his hands were wrapped around the hilt now, and his shoulders burned with the strain of lifting the great blade. “Just makes it easier for me- more of you to hit!” The last world was a snarl as he leapt forward, pushing off the ground with as much force as he could muster- but even at the peak of his jump he could only reach something the was probably a knee, cleaving through black flesh and bringing forth another river of ichor to pour out in a slick rush. The demon screeched, the sound painful- Kurogane tasted blood as it rang in his ears and knifed into his brain, but even through the pain he didn’t stop, coming round in another hacking swing that stole the steadiness from the beast’s steps.  
  
It lunged for him again and he circled away, leaping backwards in quick succession as the ground beneath his feet crumbled, and when the demon followed, roaring in temper as it surged forth towards the lip of the crater-   
  
-splintering rock gave out beneath it to send it tumbling over the edge and down into the light that shone in its depths.  
  
Before Kurogane had time to do more than blink that quavering glow ripped into a full-bodied burn, a great rush of fire leaping skyward with a screaming  _whoooshhh-!_  
  
Pale and shimmering flame roared through the air in a volcanic burst, licking at the sky with enough heat to boil away the clouds above and leave the air pulsing and hot. Sweat bloomed on Kurogane’s face as he turned away, shielding his eyes as best he could with the folds of his cloak; the heat slammed into him in a great push that sent him backwards, boots scraping through the dirt as he slipped beneath it, and sparks skittered upwards as he drove his sword into the ground, its tip scraping against icy stone as he struggled to find purchase.  
  
It was hard to breathe, the air baked and steaming as he sucked it down, and before long he was gulping for breath, each one too hot to bear as those flames burned on and on, the dying shriek of the great demon echoing in his bones as they finally flickered out in one brilliant flash whose bright shadows shimmered in the air long after they were gone. The breeze, dead from the great heat that had scorched the air dry, stirred back into life again to whisper over his skin and stir his hair; as each second passed it grew stronger still, building to a strength that would soon become a gale.  
  
Slowly, moving with great caution, Kurogane lifted his head- but no fire was forth-coming, no great conflagration; just the gentle hiss of baked earth cooling in the night and the coming howl of the wind. That light was faded now, barely any radiance left, and when Kurogane lifted a shaking hand to his sweating face, he couldn’t stop the sigh that shivered past his teeth. He cleaned his sword with a quick flick downwards; demon blood sloughed off the blade like ashes, dry and dusty from the great heat that had risen from the scarred earth- but some lingered still, clinging to the blade and leaving it dirty as he shoved it into the sheath. He’d have to clean it properly later, but for now he had other things to worry about.  
  
Whatever it was that had burst into flame like that, it had consumed that demon in one quick flash, more than Kurogane could have managed with any weapon- he  _had_  to know what it was, even if it meant going down into that crater to find out.  
  


* * *

The ground beneath his feet was crumbling, ashy and scorched with great glassy tracks of molten slag that hissed and popped in the cooling night air; the dim red glow of superheated rock would have been enough to see by alone even if it weren’t for the soft shining light coming from the crater’s centre, and the stone that Kurogane stepped upon clinked and crackled with earthy little sounds as he walked –gingerly, carefully, each step measured and tested for stability and sole-melting heat- towards the lip of the impact zone.  
  
He was still breathing hard from the fight, his heart hammering in his chest and sweat dripping down his face in stinging salty droplets, but his vision was clear and his descent down the steep slope mostly steady -even with little shards of rock and half-melted scree coming loose beneath his boots he didn’t stumble- and when Kurogane took those final, skidding steps down into the pit of the crater, his breath caught sharply in his throat at what he’d found there.  
  
Kurogane had never really given much thought to the stars above him. He knew his constellations –the twins, the lovers, the hunter, the maid; the steed, the snake, the trident, the noose- and how to navigate by them –lovers on your left and you face north; the hunter on your right and you face west- and if the legends behind their abstract shapes had faded in his memory, so be it. But he had never at any point tried to understand what a star really  _was_... and nothing he had ever learned could have made him ready for  _this._  
  
The man that lay in a tumble of long limbs on scorched and glassy ground was pale, as white and shining as the full moon, as the inside of some pearly shell; the unbroken fairness of him was tinted just slightly pink in the places where blood beat beneath the surface of his skin, his whole body ever so faintly luminous- but his feet were as black as ink, stained from the tips of his toes to the jut of his ankles and beyond. It took Kurogane a heartbeat to realise that the dark colour that painted milky skin was  _soot_ , ash streaked across his body in liberal strokes, winding up his legs in dusty charcoal spirals that coloured him from calf to mid-thigh in varying shades of grey.   
 _  
Wherever he fell from, he fell feet-first_ , thought Kurogane, and then couldn’t say why.   
  
But whoever he was, he was also  _naked_ , that fact becoming staggeringly apparent as the slender figure shivered, goosebumps pricking on bare skin as the breeze rolled over him; there was not a stitch of clothing anywhere on his person, and the pale hair that trailed behind him in a shimmering wave –long, silky skeins unspooled across the dirty ground in great heavy tresses, glowing as brilliantly phosphorous as the tail of some great comet- did nothing to cover him at all. He was still shivering even as Kurogane drew closer, crouching down beside him to brush loose strands from that face and see if he could be woken.  
  
Tentatively, Kurogane brushed his fingertips over the arch of a cheekbone- and the man jerked upright with a shivering gasp, eyes slamming open and chest heaving for breath as he clawed at the air, that small touch enough to pull him into the waking world. He shuddered, shoulders slumping weakly as whatever force that held him upright gave out, and Kurogane just barely got his arms up to catch him as he fell back; he tumbled into Kurogane’s lap in a boneless rush, his face turned skyward, and one hand came up to grab at his shirt, fingers knotting in the rough cloth.  
  
Heavy-lidded eyes -hazy and dreamily unfocused but brighter than summer, each one bluer than a stolen piece of midday sky- caught and held Kurogane’s own unsteadily. “I didn’t mean to fall,” he whispered, barely a breath; the words sighed soft into the cool night air, stirring the drifting, glowing strands of hair that floated about his face, and for Kurogane it was as though a single, perfect sword-thrust had struck home in his chest. “I... I need to...  _oh._ ” His head lolled back and only Kurogane’s hand cradling the back of his neck kept his face from meeting stone as thick eyelashes fluttered closed, the man in his arms slipping back into unconsciousness between one heartbeat and the next.  
  
Kurogane cursed, freeing one hand and brushing away long tresses of pale hair from a slender, white throat. “Don’t you die on me,” he muttered, fingertips seeking any signs of life. “Don’t you  _dare_. I don’t even know your name.” His fingers pressed firmly into the soft spot beneath an upturned chin, searching for a pulse- and when he found the flutter –arrhythmic and slow and painfully weak- his shoulders slumped in relief, a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding leaving him in a gusty rush.  
  
“Who the hell falls from the sky just to faint in someone’s arms, huh? What’re you trying to do- scare me? You’ll need to try harder than that.” Slowly, and with more care than he would ever admit to any witness, Kurogane shifted his grip on the body in his arms, hooking long legs over the crook of his elbow and dragging the man close enough to cradle that lolling head against the swell of his shoulder as Kurogane moved to gather his feet under him. He grunted as he stood, not expecting the weight; for someone who looked so lean and lanky, his new friend was surprisingly heavy.  
  
“ _Hnff_. No wonder you made a crater- it’s probably all that hair of yours.” As though in rebuttal, the man sighed; his breath tickled Kurogane’s skin through the thin fabric of his shirt and pricked goosebumps all over, making him fight to force back a shudder as long hair trailed over his arm. “All right, all right, I take it back,” he mumbled, bending down awkwardly and shuffling his burden about to grab his sword and sling it back over his shoulder. “I won’t insult you any more... at least, not until you wake up and I can do it to your face.”  
  
The walk up the slope was a long one, not nearly as easy as his descent; the stone was cool now, slippery-smooth and difficult to find purchase on, and the loose stones that rolled under his boots would have toppled him off his feet but for his determination not to fall while carrying someone injured. He wasn’t quite sweating by the time he reached the top -the man he carried wasn’t nearly heavy enough for that- but he felt flushed all the same, the warmth of another living body pressed against him bleeding through his clothes and glowing against his skin.  
  
“Hah,” huffed Kurogane, boots crunching against the lip of the crater, each heavy step grinding crumbling stone and dirt to powder beneath it. His breath steamed in the air, the breeze stronger now than it had been at the bottom, howling down through the huge tract of upturned earth and broken trees carved across the landscape in the wake of the star that fell- the one that he, against all logic, apparently held in his arms.  
  
The man –the  _star_ , because that was what he was, and the sooner Kurogane managed to wrap his head around that concept the better- murmured softly in his sleep, his words unvoiced and indistinct, and his face contorted beneath the weight of some heavy dream. Without even thinking about it, Kurogane’s fingertips found the arch of one cheekbone, brushing soft over skin as smooth and unmarked as new snowfall; beneath that touch the star quieted, lulled into peaceful slumber once more.  
  
“What am I doing?” asked Kurogane quietly. “What the  _hell_  am I doing?” There was no anger in his words though, just an honest question; he was alone in a demon-choked forest, half-lost and wholly confused, and he stood uneasily on the lip of a star-born crater with an unconscious, faintly-glowing man –a literal celestial body fallen from heaven- cradled in his arms. There was nothing in the world that could have prepared him for this.  
  
But standing here in the middle of the night like an awestruck fool was not going to do him or his companion any good- not if the demons came back. Shelter, fire; they’d need both to make it through to dawn, and the forest was not so thick he couldn’t find a place fit for both, and the sooner the better at that.  
  
Kurogane sighed, breath leaving his lips in a plume of fog as he shifted his grip as best he could, hefting his burden upwards so that his long and tangled hair wouldn’t catch on the fastenings of his clothes. The motion jostled the still-slumbering star enough to let his head loll back, and even by the faintest moonlight, his peaceful face could be clearly seen. “Knowing my luck, you’re going to be way more trouble than you’re worth,” he muttered, reaching out to brush away the few shimmering strands that stuck to parted lips. “I should have let the demons eat you.”  
  
The threat was an idle one, however; that was one fate he wished on no-one no matter how deserving, and to leave someone alone and vulnerable in a place where demons had so recently swarmed was an act he could not have borne the shame of. Kurogane sighed again, and without even realising he was doing so adjusted his grip to better cradle the man he held, tipping that pale and sleeping face into the crook of his neck and shifting the weight of that body against his own. It was a long way to Jade already, and that was  _without_  adding to his load- but even if he didn’t know who this man was -knew nothing about him but for the piercing blue of his eyes- it didn’t mean he could just abandon him.  
  
His parents would turn in their graves if he did something so low as  _that._  
  
So Kurogane walked, and it wasn’t long at all until the sleepy-slow warmth that seeped through his clothes every place they touched became as familiar as his own heartbeat, its steady cadence falling into rhythm with each and every step he took.


	2. Chapter 2

_It is a sick and aching thing, this falling; it leaves you trembling and angry and afraid\- and though you do not have lungs to breathe (or lips to speak, or teeth or tongue or any other trappings of a mouth) you cry out all the same. The darkness rushed up and over you in a way few things could, overwhelming in its intensity, and though you burned in defiance -flared bright and unquenchable, flame dancing in every breath you could not take, this toothy shade just another demon among a sky stained black with them and you have burned many before- there were cracks in your fiery armour through which the shadows seeped and trickled cold fingers down into your flaming heart to find an icy grip.  
  
And then they pulled. They took a hold on you where no thing ever should, where no hand had ever been; pulled, pulled, slow and steady at first but unstoppable at the last, power building with each passing moment, coiling dark and demanding right through the very core of you-  
_  
fai no what is happening please don’t go you can’t have him you can’t have him let him go give me back my brother _  
  
-and around you the universe trembled in star-spangled inches as you were rocked on your axis, shaken from your orbit; barely a degree of movement spare from the pattern you had held for millennia, as steady in your course and as brilliant in your aim as you had been born to be (beside him, born beside him, binary in all the ways that counted, twins as surely as you were stars) but a mere degree had been enough to tear you from his light-_  
  
i can’t i can’t yuui i can’t stop it it’s not me i don’t want this i want to stay no no no  
__  
-and so you fell. And you are falling still, a slow eternity stretching out between the two of you as you tumble from your course, prised free by the grip of some black magic that pulls you inexorably down.  
  
Galaxies twist before you (before your eyes, if you had them) and the brightness besides which you were born (Yuui) fades from your sight as blackness bleeds into the corners of your vision (chokes your breath, if you could breathe) as you are torn apart from him. The stars are singing, humming, crying; the music of the spheres ringing across the celestial plain in a mourning dirge that brings you to tears (which you cannot cry, which curl in the aching hollow that blooms inside you) as heaven is lost to you, as you are dragged down into the dark, as the demons pour through the blackness of space to fill the void left in your wake. And Yuui burns, burns them back, chases the tendrils that hold you fast with all the heat a star’s heart can bring to bear, a great and crashing supernova that reaches for you across the width of space, sets fire to the macrocosm and sheds nebulae in twisting whorls of light even as you reach back in kind.  
  
But it is not enough, and your fingers (the ones you never had) slip from his grasp.  
  
yuui no yuui yuui no i’ll come back i’ll come home i have to i will find a way i will i swear  
  
fai fai fai  
  
yuui i’ll come home i have to i’ll come home to you  
  
And it is the first lie you have ever told.  
  
Because you are lost. Because you are not the first to be so. Because you know that what falls can never return.  


* * *

The downside of carrying a fully-grown man up a hill through a wet and dripping forest in the middle of the night is that you are carrying a fully-grown man up a hill through a wet and dripping forest in the middle of the night, with all of the back-breaking heaviness, uneasy footing and poor visibility that implied. Kurogane was a skilled woodsman; his father had made sure of that- and what his father hadn’t taught him about how to survive out in the open on his own, he’d learnt for himself through trial and error. His mother’s books on woodland flora -the few that had survived the destruction of his home- had helped as well; it was more than merely useful knowing which plants could be eaten and which were of medicinal value, most of which he was listing in his mind as he took step after heavy step in the vain hope that he might remember something helpful.  
  
Of course, that was assuming earthly herbs would have any effect at all on a being that had literally fallen out of the sky and crashed into the ground in a ball of fire and come away mostly unharmed... only mostly, because while his companion didn’t appear to have a scratch on any part of his fair skin, he was still sleeping deeply, deeper than Kurogane’s not-rough-but-probably-not-gentle-ether handling would have encouraged; that, and the steady, shimmering glow that had surrounded the man like the light from a lantern had started to flicker and fade, guttering like a candle caught in a stiff breeze. It was probably not a good sign- Kurogane didn’t need to know to anything about stars to gather that much.  
  
His boots slipping on slimy leaf litter, Kurogane grunted as he almost stumbled and regained his footing through sheer determination alone. His arms were shaking a bit, his shoulders burning with the strain, but his grip was as sure as ever; he kept moving doggedly forward, blowing a few strands of sweat-soaked hair out of his eyes with a huffing breath as he marched.  _I need to get to somewhere where I can put you down and get a better look at you. You must have scrambled your brains when you hit the ground; carrying you around like a sack of potatoes probably isn’t helping._  
  
Things would be a lot easier if the poor bastard would just wake up already.  
  
“Nnn...”  
  
The dazed, grumpy little murmur that came from between parted lips was surely a sign that someone up there was looking out for the star in his arms -they sure as hell weren’t looking out for  _Kurogane_ ; his luck was bad enough without trying to drag astronomy into it, thank you very much- and was accompanied by a creased brow as the man in his arms shifted uneasily, his face crumpling up and eyes rolling beneath their lids as his body stirred into wakefulness, albeit unhappily so; he probably had one  _hell_  of a headache.  
  
“Hey,” said Kurogane carefully, pitching his voice low and soft; he didn’t want to startle the man, and he figured waking up to being carried by someone you’d never seen before -and who had actually made small children cry by forgetting how damn intimidating he apparently looked when he was in a bad mood- had to be more than a little unnerving. “Don’t freak out, okay- you’re safe with me. I’m not going to hurt you, I just want to get you somewhere safe.”  
  
Heavy-lidded eyes -still as bright as they were the first time he saw them, still so impossibly blue- blinked open slowly, thick eyelashes fluttering; one pale, slightly-shining arm lifted to rub grumpily at the sleep-grit crowding their corners with the heel of a hand, its long fingers curling in towards the palm. “Nnmmhh?” mumbled the star, his head tipped back against Kurogane’s arm as he peered upwards, and the look of drowsy confusion on his face as he did so didn’t exactly fill Kurogane with confidence.  
_  
Maybe you really are brain-damaged._  “Hey,” he said again, a little louder this time. “Do you know where you are? Do you know what your name is?” He knew the man could speak; he’d definitely spoken intelligibly, if briefly, when Kurogane had found him in the bottom of that crater, and his short nap couldn’t have stripped him of his language skills.  
  
“My name?” asked the star dreamily. His eyes were a little unfocused, cloudier than the sky above them.  
  
Kurogane, coming up to a steeper part of the slope now, grunted in exertion as he started to climb in earnest; his legs were aching, the muscles in his thighs groaning in protest- it was a steep hike even without carrying this heavy a burden. “Yeah. Your name. Everybody’s got one- you remember yours, right?”  
  
The star’s confused expression cleared a little, the cloudbanks in his gaze rolling back as comprehension dawned- literally, seeing as the soft, erratic glow emanating from his entire body brightened by at least a few degrees. “Oh, yes, of course I remember- as if I could forget! My name is  _Fai_ ,” continued the star blithely, waving an idle hand about-  
  
-and then stiffening in something Kurogane could only describe as abject horror as he caught sight of his own fingers.  
  
The panicked shriek that burst from his lips was not nearly as high-pitched as it could have been, but it was certainly loud enough to startle a flock of night-birds from the trees around them- and when combined with the solid elbow that slammed into Kurogane’s breastbone as the star flailed in his arms -transforming from a heavy but placid burden into a thrashing mess of long limbs and raining blows- it was more than enough to drop him to his knees. Kurogane grunted in shock, bile rising in his gullet as the man- as  _Fai_  kicked him solidly in the gut; he caught it before he threw up, but the acid burned in his throat even as he forced it back down, and his eyes were watering as he stumbled, collapsing into the leaf-litter with a pained groan.  
  
Fai tumbled out of his arms in a rush, staggering sideways and backing into the trunk of a tree; the look on his face matched that of any wild animal Kurogane had even seen cornered in a trap, those fair features contorting with something like rage. “Touch me again and I’ll  _burn_  you,” he hissed, eyes wide and terrified- but his teeth were gritted and the soft, languorous tone of his voice had hardened into something husky and dangerous as his hands clawed at the wet bark behind him. Pale hair curtained his body in a shimmering fall, trembling with the same agitation that set the star to shaking, and that dim light that had glowed about him before flickered like an open flame now, bright enough to hurt the eyes and dazzle the unwary.  
  
Clawing his way up to his feet, Kurogane spat a sour-tasting mouthful into the surrounding shrubbery, doubling over with his hands on his knees as he caught his breath; there’d probably be a nice bruise later where that kick had connected with him, and he wasn’t really in the mood to be threatened by someone who he’d just expended considerable energy carrying up a large and thickly forested hill. “Burn me with  _what_ , idiot,” he growled, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and grimacing even as he squinted and shielded his eyes with the other. “You’re not exactly carrying a lit torch around. And in case you haven’t noticed, you’re in the middle of a wet forest- try to light anything up and it’ll just fizzle out.”  
  
Fai’s eyes narrowed dangerously, the bright radiance flickering about his slender body flaring to a painful glare that cast dancing shadows around the trees, the air crackling with a sudden wave of heat that set the breeze astir and the dripping greenery around him to steaming, the treetops above him swaying. “I am a  _star_ ,” said Fai hotly, and his very words were like embers dropping from his lips. “I was born with a heart of fire- I don’t need a  _torch_  to set you alight.” The words were venomous, the look in his eyes more so; Kurogane would have been intimidated -and probably was, even if only a little bit- but for the sudden, hissing sigh that was that burning glow spluttering out in a plume of vapour.  
  
Above Fai, a heavy tree branch dipped -shaken by the breeze and the rising heat, probably- and dumped the heavy load of water cupped in its leaves onto him in a drenching fall that left the star speechless and steaming; water soaked through his hair and trickled from his chin as he stared, wreathed in rising fog, and for a moment, there was no noise in the forest but for its slow drip onto the leaf litter below.  
  
Finally regaining his breath, Kurogane straightened up, brushing traces of muck from his the knees of his breeches where he’d almost fallen. “Want to try that again?” he asked dryly. “Or have you cooled down now?”  
  
Fai blinked, slowly, his expression a mess of confusion and mortified embarrassment. Raindrops dripped off his eyelashes. “Um.” To Kurogane’s astonishment, a pink flush flared in pale cheeks, clearly visible in the gloom even without that backlit glow; he watched in fascination as Fai swallowed, his throat bobbing and the hot blush colouring his face flowing downwards towards his chest. “I... may have been little hasty in assuming you had dark intentions.”  
  
Kurogane snorted. “Whatever. Look, I just found you on your back in that damn crater- I didn’t  _put_  you there. Seems like you did that bit all on your own.” Even as he said the words he could see they’d hit a nerve, something quick and dark flashing across that pale face, honest and unspeakable- but it was gone too quick for Kurogane to be sure he’d seen it at all. “All I was trying to do,” he continued slowly, “was help you out a bit.” Which was true, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t see why Fai had jumped to conclusions; it probably wasn’t all that comforting to wake up in the arms of someone you’d never seen before. “Truce?” he offered, taking a few steps closer and holding out a hand.  
  
Fai hesitated -staring at his own fingers almost as long as he did Kurogane’s- before he carefully reached out and pressed their palms together. Warmth bloomed at the contact, melting up Kurogane’s arm and chasing heat over skin long since chilled by the rain and the wind; he shivered in spite of his best efforts not to.  
  
“Uh,” he mumbled. “Not exactly what I had in mind.” It would do, though- even if he’d been offering a handshake rather than a handhold, Fai’s grip was firm and sure.  
  
Blue eyes, shadowed by the heavy treetops above them and framed by tangled, dripping hair, peered up at him curiously. “Can I let go now or am I supposed to keep holding?”  
  
Kurogane sighed. “You can let go now.” Warm fingers slipped from his own, leaving Kurogane with a curious sensation almost like pins and needles; it didn’t hurt, it just felt strange and a little unnerving. “Well. Now that you’re not threatening to burn me in return for me carrying you out of danger, I think we can make some progress. You said your name was Fai?”  
  
“Yes,” said the star, and the smile that spread over his face was bright -and distracting, obviously forced, in no way matching the depth and colour of his eyes- as he smoothed his hair out of his face. “I think you’re supposed to tell me yours now, right?”  
  
“Kurogane.” It was on the tip of his tongue to say ‘of Suwa’, but he bit it back at the last second, clipping the words before he could speak them. His home was Clow now, even if he’d had to leave it behind to save his own neck.  
  
“Kurogane,” repeated Fai softly, frowning slightly as he rolled the word around in his mouth. “No, that won’t work- it doesn’t sound dashing at all! Kuro-ranger sounds a bit better for the hero of this story, I should think,” he said brightly.  
  
There was a long moment where Kurogane actually considered pushing Fai down the slope and leaving him to roll back down into the crater he’d first found the star in, but he mastered it through force of will alone.  _Don’t get carried away. It’s a stupid nickname, and he’s probably got a brain like soft cheese right now considering the size of that hole you found him in even if he did fall feet-first._ Thinking about that actually drew his mind back to the reality of the star’s situation- he was naked and  _filthy_  and likely to catch his death of cold if Kurogane didn’t do something.  
  
“The hero of-? No, I’m not even going to ask,” he muttered, taking a hold of a thin wrist and tugging, forcing the star to follow along behind him even as he marched forward through the dripping trees. “Come on. There’s a stream not far from here. You can clean up before we stop for the night.”  
  
“Stop? I wasn’t aware we’d started,” mumbled Fai, but Kurogane’s grip was firm and he came along easily enough, voicing no further protests. It was only a small mercy, but it was one he was thankful for all the same- it would have taken a lot more energy than he had right now if he’d had to fight the star every step of the way.  


* * *

Crouching down to scrub at the soot-stained soles of his feet with a handful of coarse sand he’d gathered from the riverbank, Fai stared blankly at the quick-flowing surface of the water, his thoughts racing with much the same speed if not more so.  
  
The cold river water had been almost as much of a shock as finding himself in a body like this -with hands and a mouth and a heart that drummed so loudly in his chest he could barely hear himself think; all the things he’d never had before, wrapped tight in skin that felt the chill as thought it wasn’t there at all- in the first place, and Fai couldn’t have stopped the gasp that burst through his lips when his foot had first slipped on smooth-worn stones as he waded deeper, one knee buckling and dumping him in the stream, even if he’d known to try. He’d never felt this cold before, not really; even in the breathless nothing of the heavens he’d been born in, no matter how black and void of warmth the darkness around them had been, he’d always had Yuui to keep close to -his light the one surety in the ever-changing heavens- and it was strange and  _frightening_  to realise he was alone.  
  
Well. Almost alone.  
  
“Hey. You alright?”  
  
Fai surfaced from the stream, flicking his hair from his eyes with a toss of his head, and even the slap of the heavy, sodden strands falling across his bare back was startling in its reality. “I’m fine,” he called out, and his voice cracked a bit as a shudder worked him over. On the river’s edge, the man named Kurogane stood with his back to the river; his shoulders jumped a bit under Fai’s gaze, and it was easy to tell those strong arms -the ones that had carried him all the way up from where he’d fallen- were folded across his chest, even from behind.  
  
“Well, hurry up then,” came the gruff order, Kurogane speaking to the forest at large rather than turning to face him. “You’ll freeze if you stay in there for too long.”  
  
“All right,” said Fai softly, rubbing the last of the ashy streaks from his legs with wet hands. “I’m almost done.” Below the rolling water, his skin was ghostly, the shape of his limbs indistinct; the blurring of his body in his own sight had to be a rippling mirror of the uncertainty that curled in his chest. Before, when the rainwater had drenched him- it shouldn’t have been so easy for his flame to be quenched like that, and though the hands he lifted to the cloudy sky were pale and shimmering, that shine was through contrast to the darkness alone. They weren’t  _glowing_ , not like they should be, not like his mind insisted starfire poured into mortal flesh would; he was all but human now, grounded and darkened and made less from the moment he’d hit the earth, and where he should feel a warmth inside him -a flame beneath his breast, burning hot where this heart of his now pounded- there were only embers, guttering and weak.  
_  
The fire at the heart of me- it’s gone out._  
  
He really had fallen.  
  
Slowly, with limbs that ached, Fai stepped out of the river and onto its sandy shore. He was so lost in his thoughts that he felt nothing of the chill that sluiced down his body with the water and left puckering goosebumps in its wake, but maybe his shaking hands betrayed him; when Kurogane moved to hand him a bundle of cloth -clothes apparently, the ones he’d drawn from the heavy satchel he’d carried on one shoulder, rough-spun beneath his fingertips but warm all the same- his dark brow creased with something that could have been worry.  
  
“Look. I can’t pretend to understand what you’re feeling,” he said briskly, “because I’m not that kind of guy. But I can give you a fire to sit beside and someone to watch your back until you get your thoughts sorted out- and something to wear so you don’t have to do it naked. The rest is up to you.”  
  
Fai stared down at his armful of clothes, blinking as river water tracked down his face and dripped onto the fabric, soaking quickly through. “I... thank you.” There wasn’t much more he could say, really; it was hard to be grateful at all considering the situation he found himself in... but Fai couldn’t deny it would have been worse to wake truly alone, lying in a crater with the starless sky above to illustrate just what he’d lost.  
  
_Yuui. I have to... I have to come home to you._  
  
Kurogane grunted dismissively, startling him from his thoughts. “Whatever. Just put those on- you’ll dry quicker. I’m going to start a fire. Come and join me when you’re done.”  
  
He walked away then, leaving Fai alone with the river and the rustling trees; it was the work of moments to pull the clothes on, and even though he’d never worn such garments -never had a body to wear them upon in the first place- it was relatively easy to figure out which limb went where. The fastenings gave him trouble, though, his fingers clumsy on the laces, and he was forced to hold his borrowed breeches up by hand when they kept slipping down.  
  
He was drier now, but still cold; his hair was a wet and tangled mess that soaked into his clothes and made his back itch under the heavy weight of it, and beneath his bare feet the ground was slimy and sharp in alternation, mossy leaf litter spiked with sharp twigs and rough-shaped stones. Was it always like this, being human- knowing you were only separated from the world and everything in it by a thin and vulnerable skin? It wasn’t something Fai thought he could ever be comfortable with, and each step he took back towards the trees and the clearing Kurogane had found was unsteady and a little unsure- and not just because of his poor footing.  


* * *

The man that met Kurogane at the campfire was obviously one that had never worn breeches before, judging by the way their laces were undone and how they kept slipping downwards, forcing him to grab a handful of waistband to keep them upright. He’d known Fai was skinny, felt the lack of anything but muscle and bone on that slender body with his own two hands... but it was still something else to see his clothes draped on that slender frame like the coat on a scarecrow.  
  
“Um,” said Fai, looking down at his bare feet and wiggling his toes in the leaf litter. “They keep falling down.”  
  
“Hang on- I’ve got some rope.” He always carried a strong rope, wound into a neat coil and shoved down the bottom of his satchel, and it was that he pulled from its depths now, along with his knife and a few scraps of leather he’d kept purely because they were useful. “Come here,” he said, rising to his feet; Fai watched him warily but drew closer all the same, barely flinching when Kurogane stepped close to loop a hastily-cut length of it around those skinny hips and knot it tight. “That should solve that problem.” Before the star could think to protest -or he himself could think too hard about what he was doing- Kurogane’s hands fell to the laces of Fai’s borrowed breeches as well; he yanked them tight and tied them off with quick efficiency, refusing to let the warm burn snaking up his throat show on his face. “And that’s the other one solved too. Sit,” he commanded, his hands falling heavy to Fai’s shoulders; the star buckled beneath the pressure, dropping to the ground to sit cross-legged and watch curiously as Kurogane moved back beside the fire himself.  
  
He made himself comfortable and laid a large scrap of leather on his lap, cutting it in half and trimming it carefully with his knife; a few holes poked in the edges and a handful of strong twine later -nearly as useful as rope and another thing he kept on him at all times, as well as his knife and water-skin- and he had a passable pair of foot coverings. They weren’t shoes, and they probably weren’t the most comfortable things in the world to wear, but while he had spare breeches and a shirt, he didn’t carry about an extra pair of boots and there was no way Fai could go without  _something_  on his feet. He was soft all over, every inch of his skin pale and shimmering and completely uncallused- if he walked around barefoot he’d slice his soles to bloody ribbons in no time.  
  
The star seemed bemused when he was handed one, but the dawning comprehension as to what they were once Kurogane demonstrated brought a brief glimmer of light to shine beneath his skin. There was something almost like a smile as he brushed the leaves off his feet and slipped them on, tying the twine in two deft knots about his ankles- in exactly the same kind of knot Kurogane had used to tie his breeches, in fact.  
_  
Huh. Guess he’s a quick learner._  
  
Things were quiet for a little while after that, Fai squeezing the water out of his hair and chafing his hands over his arms to warm himself as Kurogane stoked the fire and repacked the contents of his satchel once more, and it only took a few more moments of watching the star shiver on the other side of the flames before he’d had enough. “Right,” he said loudly, standing up fast enough that Fai actually jumped; the star watched him with wide eyes as he unfastened his cloak, swinging it loose from his shoulders and fanning a great waft of sparks from the fire with the movement-  
  
-and then strode briskly around the campfire to drape the whole length of dark fabric over those skinny shoulders in one smooth movement.  
  
Fai  _stared_  at him, his pale hands coming up to clutch at the heavy fall of cloth; Kurogane’s cloak probably wasn’t the cleanest, considering he’d been marching all night through a damp forest in it, but it was warm and woven well, its thick folds more than enough to trap the heat from the fire and keep out the cold breeze. And considering how little meat on his bones the man actually had, he needed all the help he could get to stay warm.  
  
Fai was still staring at him even as he made his way back to the fire and settled back down with his back against the tree; there was such intent in the way that gaze tracked over his face that Kurogane could feel it almost like a physical touch, and the almost pained look in blue eyes was difficult to see. “What,” he grunted eventually- it was obvious Fai wanted to say something.  
  
“I... I don’t,” he began, and then stopped, his expression turning frustrated and feathery brows creasing across his forehead as he frowned. “I don’t understand why you would go so far for me, why you would be so kind,” said Fai quietly. “It’s not something I would have expected from a human.”  
  
Kurogane snorted, stretching his legs out and crossing his feet as his ankles; he could feel the warmth of the fire soaking through the leather of his boots. “You say that like you’re an expert. How many humans have you met, exactly?” His was willing to bet all the gold he had in the world the answer was ‘none’.  
  
A brief flush of pink coloured Fai’s face. “I have never left the heavens before,” he said stiffly. “But you would be surprised how many among you talk to the stars, and not only your poets. Everything I know about humans I have learnt through observation.”  
  
“I’d still wager it’s not much,” said Kurogane bluntly, and Fai had the grace to look a little chastised.  
  
“I won’t deny that,” came the murmur, Fai looking away and up to the clouds above; the slice of starry sky he’d cut across the horizon in his fall was gone now, absorbed completely by the rolling cloudbanks, leaving no light to be seen and deep shadows to fall across his fair features. “I would never have left at all if the choice had not been made for me.”  
_  
I didn’t mean to fall_ , he’d said, when Kurogane had first found him; he knew now he hadn’t imagined the pain that had cut into those words, fraying their edges even as despair made them soft and weak.  
  
“We don’t fall very often –I think there have only been two before me in all the time I’ve been alive- but when we do, we fall in flame,” said Fai quietly. “It used to be something we’d tease the young ones about, how they’d tumble from heaven if they weren’t careful. No ever really thinks it could happen to them.” He shivered, wrapping his arms about himself beneath Kurogane’s borrowed cloak, and Kurogane frowned to see the pain naked on his face. “I don’t... I don’t remember why I fell. I didn’t  _want_  to, but I did and now I have to... I have to get home.” His voice broke a little on the last word, barely loud enough to be heard over the crackling of the fire; the glow from the flames as they ate hungrily into dry wood cast strange shadows across Fai’s face, orange sparks reflecting in eyes tinted a bruised violet by the darkness around them. “He’s waiting for me,” whispered Fai, looking skyward, and the words sounded so  _lost_  that Kurogane wasn’t entirely sure he was supposed to hear them.  
  
Whoever ‘he’ was, he must have been important.  
  
“Then we’ll just have to get you home.” The expression on Fai’s face was almost comical, the star looking up at him in such disbelief that Kurogane immediately found himself scowling back. “What?” he snapped, all but feeling his hackles rise as Fai just  _stared_  at him, his injured pride definitely pricked by the utter confusion that washed over fair features.  
  
“You... you want to help me?” and the incredulous tone of that voice was goddamn  _insulting._  
  
“What, you think I’m completely heartless?” growled Kurogane. “I’m not a monster, damn you. You fall out of the sky in a ball of fire, crash-land at my feet-” never mind that he’d had to run halfway across the countryside and through the woods to find Fai in the first place “-and get attacked by a greater demon before you even wake up-” and never mind that Fai had technically defeated it without even lifting a finger, either “-it’s  _obvious_  you need help. Besides, you think I’m going to just sit here and see you looking at where the stars should be like that and not get involved?” Reminding himself that biting the fluffy head off someone who’d probably hit said fluffy head very hard after falling from the heavens was not proving his point, Kurogane took a deep breath and forced it out through his teeth. “Look. I’m going to the Spirit Markets because I have to find the Witch of the Moon- she lives there, in the Country of Jade. And if she knows how to help me, then maybe she knows how to get you home. That’s what witches do- they know things the rest of us don’t.”  
  
Fai was silent for a long time, just watching him from the other side of the fire; those eyes stayed on his face even as the flames cracked open a large piece of tinder and sent a shower of sparks swirling upwards, each tiny yellow flare scattering across the space between them like a handful of fireflies caught on the wind. “And you’d help me get there- to these markets?” There was no disbelief colouring his voice now, words falling oddly flat; it was almost as though Fai didn’t know how to respond to his offer except with anything but shock.  
  
Kurogane grunted, waving one hand dismissively. “I don’t even have to help you- you’d probably get there alright if you followed the road. But travelling with someone’s just as easy as travelling on your own, and you look like you’d be handy in a fight. I could use someone at my back with all the demons wandering about at night. Not that I can’t take care of myself just fine as is,” he added hastily, because he didn’t want Fai getting the wrong idea; just because he wouldn’t mind company didn’t mean he  _needed_  it. “You want to spend the rest of your life glowing in the dark in the middle of the woods all on your lonesome, that’s fine by me.”  
  
“I don’t know what to say,” mumbled Fai. The shock was gone now, replaced with something like wariness- even without knowing him, Kurogane could tell it wasn’t an expression that suited that face.  
  
“You don’t have to say anything,” said Kurogane bluntly. “In the morning, I’m heading down that road, towards Jade. Whether you come with me or not is your choice- no skin off my nose either way.” He leant back further against his tree, wrapping his arms tighter around himself; even with the fire, it was cool without his cloak. “It’s a few days hard walking, and I’m not slowing my pace for your sake, but if you can keep up, I won’t leave you behind. Once we get there, we can go our separate ways and never have to worry about each other again.” Kurogane meant to add something else to that, but the yawn that cracked his jaw wasn’t one that could be denied, and was followed immediately afterwards by a rush of sleepiness- he’d carried Fai in his arms most of the night, and it was only a few hours to dawn; he was damn tired.  
  
“I suppose trusting you is no worse than staying on my own,” said Fai quietly, after a long moment of simply staring at the fire. “And if this Moon Witch is what you suggest, perhaps she will know how to help me return home. Besides,” he added, eyes lifting to Kurogane’s own; the firelight rippled shimmering shadows through their depths and leant a solemn gravity to his words, “I am a stranger to many things on your world- I don’t think I’d get very far by myself.”  
  
Kurogane snorted- he’d figured that much out on his own just watching Fai’s reaction to his clothes and the wearing of them. “Fair enough. Look, I need to get some sleep- as skinny as you are you’re pretty damn heavy, and I’m tired from carrying you so far. We’ve got a long way to go tomorrow, so I suggest you get some too,” he mumbled, yawning again and wriggling his shoulders to get comfortable... well, as comfortable as he could get leaning against a rough-barked tree in the middle of the damp forest. It probably wasn’t the wisest idea in the world to let his guard down when alone with a strange being he knew next to nothing about- but the bone-deep weariness that had settled over him like a blanket wasn’t something he could fight anymore.  
  
His next blinking attempt at keeping his eyes open failed, and Fai’s pale face swam in his vision as they closed for the final time, sleep taking Kurogane over with no warning and no mercy.  


* * *

The morning dawned bright and clear, the sky above an endless field of rolling blue with no clouds in sight- and Fai could not help but stare in fascination at its brilliance. It was one thing to see the worlds below you as distant, tiny orbs of verdant colour; it was another entirely to be afoot on one of those worlds, looking up at the heavens now turned inside-out by your new perspective.  
  
Kurogane did not seem to share his appreciation, however, for all that he woke with a start just after dawn touched the horizon with blushing fingers -and that was another thing for Fai to marvel at; how could he have known that the mere cresting of the sun over this earthly sphere would be so beautiful?- and fell to packing up his meagre possessions with an efficiency that spoke of long-practice; the younger man paid no mind whatsoever to the sunlight melting soft and golden over the distant mountains as he slung his massive sword over one shoulder and his satchel over the other, looking at Fai pointedly as if to say  _are you coming?_  
  
And so they walked.   
  
He’d been worried, at first; whether or not he could keep up the pace, or if his foot-coverings would hold out, but it wasn’t long at all before his steps fell into a regular pattern beside Kurogane’s own and they were well ensconced in the forest once more. The trees filtered the falling sunlight through their lives, turning it a cool, greenish-grey as it settled over the land like the cloak that wrapped Fai’s shoulders and nearly as comforting. He ended up handing back the garment in question sometime before midday, in fact; though the forest was moderate in temperature, the sunlight warmed him through his clothes and with that layer of heavy wool draped about his shoulders, it was simply too stifling to leave it on for much longer.  
  
“Didn’t think someone so flammable would be bothered by heat,” Kurogane had muttered, even as he swung his cloak back around his shoulders and clasped it in place once more.  
  
“It’s not the heat, Kuro-hardy,” he’d replied blithely. “It’s how close it feels- why, there’s barely any breeze at all beneath that heavy thing!”  
  
And that had been the sum of their conversation in its entirety for all the long hours they walked. Fai could hardly begrudge his companion his silence; there was no malice in it, no attempt to curtail further speech as it arose... it was simply that, for the time being, they had nothing to say to each other. And perhaps that was a good thing. They were still strangers, after all; for all that Kurogane finding him in the depths of that crater and carrying him across the long, burnt scar that he’d ripped through the landscape in his descent was certainly a bond between them, Fai knew less about his companion than he knew about this world he found himself upon- and that was not very much at all.  
  
He soon knew more, though, this travelling itself a learning experience for him even as they walked; in the hours that passed between them, he learned that Kurogane was as skilled with the woods as he was with the weapon on his back -and Fai did not need to see him wield it to know it either, not with the strength of those big hands and the callus thick on his palms and fingertips evident in every action he made with them- and that while he was no conversationalist, there was still a wry humour in the twitch of his mouth when Fai misstepped in the slippery leaves. He learned that Kurogane was young, too, younger than even he had estimated. Though the breadth of his shoulders was that of a man fully grown, the power of each long stride not that of a mere youth, there was a darkness in his eyes, a scar from an old pain well-buried; such a thing was more than enough to colour that bloody red with deep shadows and mark Kurogane with an age his years belied.  
  
But grief was not the only shadow in him.  
  
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask, the words heavy in his mouth, when Kurogane held up a hand to stop. “Quiet now,” came the soft murmur, as though Fai had been anything but silent this whole time; Fai didn’t argue though, for the look in those sharp eyes was a warning one. The shade of the forest had only darkened as the morning had made for afternoon and now as it approached evening, the two of them having walked all this distance with no rest whatsoever, it was deep indeed- and Fai was glad for the break. His feet were aching something  _fierce_... which in retrospect was fair enough, considering he’d never had to walk on them before and he’d done his damndest to keep up with his companion’s punishing pace. The trees were thinning now, however, the leaf litter beneath their feet more and more commonly broken with mossy patches of earth or even grass; they were at the forest’s edge and close to dwellings of some sort, judging by the signs of civilisation now littering the forest.  
  
He stumbled over one such sign, almost tripping over a hewn log when Kurogane pulled him off the path -the one they’d been following since its appearance a little while back- and behind a tree. Fai bit back something that could have been a protest at the rough handling, halfway through hissing a muted curse at the pain in his shin when the sudden and seeping chill he drew in with his next breath cut the words from his lips.  
  
“So you feel it too,” said Kurogane. The quiet menace in his voice raised the fine hair on the back of Fai’s neck, sent a tingle down his arms to prickle in his fingertips- and it was not  _fear_  that made him feel so, but rather its opposite; this was no urge to flee or hide sweeping over him in time to each drum of his fluttering heartbeat, but the urge to fight. He was a star, after all; born to be a shining beacon in the depths of space so cold and black, and it was a poor star indeed that could not shine brightest when all around them grew dark.  
  
Excitement, of a sort he had not felt since last he burned by Yuui’s side, curled hot in his belly. “Demons,” Fai whispered. The word was eager, catching in his throat, throbbing in his chest as it squeezed his heart with fiery fingers; this darkness was one he knew very well indeed, one he had fought many times before and triumphed over in spite of the odds- and it would be no different now.  
  
Kurogane said nothing, but the gleam in his eye was acknowledgement enough. A sharp grin curved his lips as his sword sighed out of its sheath in one smooth movement, steady in his grip, and the fingers of his free hand he flicked in Fai’s direction were an invitation.  
  
They ran out from behind the tree as one, their footfalls falling in sync as they moved with haste, and the edge of the forest peeled back beneath the dusky sky -the one in which the clouds boiled across in rolling waves of thunder-black and charcoal-grey, the one in which the stars could not be seen as shadows dripped from the horizon in smoking strings of oozing nothing- to expose a small and sheltered village under attack as they broke through the mist rising from the ground with racing steps.  
_  
Demons_ , came the whisper, barely a breath of sound and hardly audible over the thrumming of his heart,  _demon blood, cold and black and deep, that’s what you see in the depths of his eyes_ -  
  
-but then they were almost at the village, its wooden structures steaming with frost as demons crashed through its tiny, winding streets in great rivers of shadow, and when the battle was joined, any other thought he might have had was lost to the pulse that thundered in his ears.  
  
Kurogane drew first blood, sword already out and swinging; ichor splattered the ground in great steaming arcs as three demons were cloven neatly in twain in just one blow. A handful of running villagers shouted in shock, their ringing voices carrying over the screams of their fellows- but Kurogane ignored them all, blind to anything but the demons that surged as one towards him, bloody flecks dancing from the tip of his sword as he brought it back to swing again and again. Fai wasn’t far behind, and the closeness of the demons set the flame in his chest -the one that guttered and flickered like a handful of embers on the verge of going out- alight once more. The spark inside him roared into life with a suddenness that was almost painful, setting his skin to burning as radiance roiled beneath it, and Fai gasped as heat coursed through him for the first time since his light had gone out. Though no flame came where he beckoned it, his fingertips were smoking; his hands glowed with a burning light, and Fai punched through the chest of one demon rearing to attack with little effort, slicing out his free hand to block the spears of shadow that came flying for his face with darting blows.  
  
Though these creatures were different from the ones he knew -they had  _bodies_  for a start, more substance in their form than the churning morass of darkness he was used to- they were still made of the same shadow-stuff; rippling light licked upwards from where his skin brushed against shadow, and the demon he impaled on the length of his arm burst into flames with a crackling  _whoomph_. Ice crunched beneath his feet as Fai yanked his arm free, black blood sluicing down his front in icy streams and staining his borrowed clothes with inky darkness.  
  
There was a lightness in his head as he spun on his feet, banishing the heaviness that had weighed him down since he’d fallen to this earthly plane, and Fai almost laughed as he held out his hand before him, ichor steaming from his fingertips. For all these that demons were incorporate now, they were still so terribly outmatched; it had taken mere seconds to destroy this one, snuff out whatever mockery of light and life it clung to, and it would take not much longer at all to destroy the others. Because the demon he had slain was not the only one here, and the heat that destroying it kindled inside him was not something he could deny.  
  
Even if he couldn’t burn -his flame still treacherously out of reach- he could still  _fight_ , and Fai would not stop until each and every one of the shadow-spawn that poured over this village in a darkling tide was dead.


	3. Chapter 3

Leather peeled from his feet in crackling, rotting strips, and in between one blow and the next -a fist to the torso that sunk through cloying shadow and set it alight; a flurry of twisting blows to dash coiling tendrils of darkness to smouldering ashes- Fai managed to find a spare moment to peel the tatters remains of his foot-coverings from his ankles with black-stained fingers, demon blood clotting beneath his fingernails and deep into the lines of his hands.  
  
Barefoot, he raced over ground that was cracked with unnatural frost, slaying any demon he could find: here a shadowy beast crawling over an upturned cart, there a twosome of clawed creatures rattling the windows of a house in an attempt to reach its screaming occupants, all of them fell to the same heat that boiled within him, his starfire just barely out of reach but his temper so close to the surface, quickening his pulse in a way that was purely human. Because he could not burn even though he wanted to. Because his flames raced beneath his skin and not at his call. Because there was a ringing in his ears, the taste of metal on his tongue -and there was no way he could possibly know what metal tasted like, and yet copper tingled between his teeth all the same- and a bloody film in his vision as he lashed out again and again and  _again_.  
  
Fai twisted, narrowly dodging a leaping attack and snatching at the long spikes of shadow that speared into the half-frozen slurry beneath his feet; the edge of a claw caught his shirt and snagged it briefly, but his fingers sunk deep into that oozing mess of darkness, flaring bright and setting flames to sear through demonic flesh as he jerked them free. In the distance, Kurogane shouted, and the sound carried clear through the night air to echo in his chest, his ribs shaking with the force of some great blow struck; there was a sound like a tree falling, a shuddering crash of timber, and a pained cry- Fai lashed out three sharp blows in quick succession, taking out a small shadow-spawn with each, and felt his heart lurch in his chest as he blurred into a run.  
  
They’d gotten separated in the chaos of light and dark and screaming demons, set adrift on the tides of this small, bloody battle as only two against many could be. Kurogane had darted towards the heart of the village, where its people congregated, and Fai had gone directly for the thickest swarm of shadows to take out as many as he could. He did not need to look to know his companion sought to protect the lives of the humans that called this place home- even with what little he knew of the man, that much had been easy to guess. But one man with one sword, no matter how skilled, could not save them all- and would surely lose his life if left to fight all alone; even without the shivery need to burn every last demon down to crumbling ashes that ached in his core, Fai could not let that happen.  
  
Because Kurogane had been kind to him when he did not need to be, and Fai wanted to know why.  
  
So he ran, and paid no mind to the shadows he drove before him. It was easy enough to deal with those as they came, his feet slapping against the churning mud and splashing through steaming puddles of black blood as he ducked and dodged and weaved; he drew closer, he caught sight of the shouting crowd of men and women gathered around the village square, their backs to the smithery as they beat back the shadows with blazing torches -because heat and light were anathema to demons, and while no forge-fire could match him flame for flame it was a good start- seeking to shelter their young and injured, and something fierce leapt in Fai’s chest as a single, silhouetted figure surged forward to meet the last of the swarming demons with a echoing shout.  
  
That darkling mass of claws and limbs and fanged, dripping maws seemed to shudder and warp, all its myriad creatures flowing upwards into a beast larger than any Fai had seen on this earth so far- but Kurogane did not hesitate, the force of his next blow splitting the air before him in a shriek of tearing wind and sinking deep into seething flesh. Ichor poured forth in a coldly-steaming fountain, gushing onto the ground in a bloody geyser, but not a drop touched the man whose sword had struck with such brutal precision, the one who lunged upwards with another slash that bit deeply into the torso of the beast.  
  
The next gash was a grave one, four great limbs severed with one swipe of the sword and the demon shrieking in rage and pain- but the beast was simply too large to be overwhelmed by even that serious a wound, and yet more heavy spiked limbs came slamming down in a series of blows that Kurogane only barely dodged, slipping in the mud as he ducked each spiny appendage. His movements were growing sloppy now, something more sinister than merely tiredness dogging his steps- and the brief flash of red eyes Fai caught through the leaping firelight were deeply shadowed, unseeing even as they stared right through him.  
  
Battle madness.  _No_ , thought Fai,  _no. I will not let you lose yourself like this._  
  
“He’s going to get himself killed!” someone shouted; Fai heard their voice clear across the village square, drawing closer with every second he ran. Without thinking, Fai dashed for the line of the crowd, snatching a flaming brand from the hands of a startled villager, and spinning away- the startled gasp that followed him was only half for the quickness of the action but mostly for the fire that roared up his arm in hungry lines of red and orange, eating through his clothes and flaring into a brilliant blue where it touched his skin.  
  
Demon blood flaked away from his skin like ashes, and his heartbeat was racing, pounding, filling his ears with the crackle of flame and the roll of thunder and leaving no room for doubt; Fai blurred into movement once more, alight from fingertip to shoulder and holding the blazing torch in his flaming hand as its heat fed his determination. He ran past Kurogane -who seemed to jerk back with a jolting start, a spark of clarity flaring in shadowed eyes- and leapt, higher and further than any human could, no matter how skilled. Fai arced upwards, feeling the leaping flame that wrapped his arm flare in the breeze of the jump as he reached the peak and began to fall, spearing his legs downwards; when he landed feet-first on the demon’s back- sinking into shadow with considerable force, the oozing depths of its body only partly solid and trying to draw him down into its rotting core- he drove his arm, flame and torch and all, deep into that cloying darkness.  
  
A flailing limb raked across the demon’s own back, trying to knock him away and clouting Fai a sound blow across the head that set his ears to ringing; pain flashed in his scalp as something sharp tangled in his hair and tore some of it free, but he didn’t budge, pushing his arm deeper still and willing the fire that clung to him to burn hotter still. Black blood sprayed over him in a great gush as the demon thrashed, splattering over his face and chest, stinging his eyes and soaking into his hair; a wash of light poured down his flesh, glowing beneath that clinging ichor and sinking through the demon’s body like sunlight through cloudy water, and as Fai ripped his hand free he left the torch behind, a brilliant spark beneath those roiling shadows that set fire to everything around it. “Get back!” Fai shouted, leaping free of the demon as it reared back and screamed; he hit the ground running, stumbling as he fell-   
  
-and it was the sudden strong hand grabbing his wrist that pulled him safely clear of the blast zone when the beast exploded in a vaporous burst of ashes and steaming gore behind him.

* * *

The villagers were cheering, though Kurogane didn’t know why- there was nothing in blood and ash and frozen, despoiled earth beneath their feet that he saw to cheer about. But maybe it was the giddiness of a battle won that made them react so, families embracing, lovers clinging fiercely to one another and the frightened children crying with relief in their mother’s arms. The blacksmith was stoking the great stove that centred the smithy to a brilliant blaze, casting leaping shadows over the walls; the pokers shoved into the coals glowed cherry-red, ready to be shoved into the sodden ground to clean the taint of demon blood from the soil- but the air falling over those gathered was almost that of a celebration, one that left Kurogane feeling as distant as he was tired, his breath heaving in his chest as his shoulders shook with the weight of his own sword.  
  
So here he stood, one hand on a sweat-slick hilt, the other locked tight about a slender arm, a strength in the wrist beneath his palm that its fine-boned structure belied. He hardly believed what he had seen, even as it had unfolded before his eyes; Fai, one arm wreathed in twisting flurries of blue-white flame, those brilliant eyes luminous as he leapt skyward, thrusting a torch into the dark beast whose back he landed on and setting it to burning higher than any funeral pyre Kurogane had ever known. The star had  _shone_ , fierce and terrible and beautiful- and the sight of it alone had been enough to pull him from the madness like a beacon in the dark.  
  
But now he was here -and sane, and free from the shadows skittering in the corners of his sight- it was something else entirely that caught his breath in his throat and stoppered it in something like fear, his fingers dropping from Fai’s arm in shock.  
  
“Kuro-hunter?” asked Fai, a tad breathlessly; his voice was husky, raw-edged from that commanding shout- and blue eyes were very bright indeed in the mask of gore that painted the side of his face slick with red.  
  
“You’re hurt.” Kurogane swallowed heavily.  
  
Slowly, as though moving in a dream, Fai raised a hand; his fingertips came away daubed with crimson. “Oh. So I am.”  
  
“You’re hurt,” repeated Kurogane, with more force this time- and now that he was looking for it, he saw more than just the bright blood seeping down from tangled, muddy hair. Thick splatters of demon ichor covered Fai in swathes, wet on his face, soaking through the shirt he’d borrowed and staining his skin with black and dripping splotches; the sight alone was enough to spike horror into Kurogane’s gut. He’d seen wounds turn bad overnight from a few scattered droplets of demon blood on broken skin –flesh blackening and cracking into rotting necrosis where blood froze and spiked through their veins, leaving amputation the only option- and healthy men die in their sleep from a single splatter across the face, let alone the drenching Fai had taken tonight.  
  
“Hot water,” he snapped, lashing out and making a villager start as he grabbed them by the arm hard enough to bruise- the man was probably the innkeeper, judging by his clothes. “A bath, filled with hot water,  _boiling_  water- lots of it, as quick as you can get it. Now!” he snarled, making him jump. The man stammered an affirmative, but Kurogane wasn’t waiting for an answer; he grabbed onto Fai, ignoring his startled protests, and dragged him bodily towards the inn, leaving the innkeeper to run ahead. If Kurogane didn’t get that demon blood cleaned off Fai’s skin, there was no telling what could happen- no way he would let someone who had  _saved his life_  die so ignobly.  
  
He ignored Fai’s protests as he marched him across the square, activity seething about them as townsfolk ran back and forth, and when they reached the inn, its workers were already running back and forth with steaming buckets of water and baskets of oven-heated stones.  
  
“Kuro-brisk, I don’t understand- what are you-  _ah_!” Fai started as he was shoved through an open door and into one of the inn’s ground-floor rooms, but Kurogane wasn’t stopping to explain; three steps in the room, he dropped his cloak, satchel and sword, already grabbing at bloody, black-soaked cloth and tearing Fai’s shirt loose from his shoulders in a ripping rush. Pale skin, smeared with ash and streaks of flaking ichor, seemed mostly unharmed- but he wasn’t going to risk it. “Breeches,  _off_ ,” he barked, leaving Fai to stare in shock; growling in impatience, Kurogane pulled forcefully at already-rotting cloth, peeling them off the star in a few quick yanks and leaving him bare and bloodied but for the tattered scraps of leather clinging to one ankle.  
  
Behind him, steam billowed from an open bathroom door; the innkeeper poked his worried head around the side as the last of his staff ran past with an armful of heavy towels. “Sir, the bath is ready and I’ve left a full boiler of hot water for you besides-”  
  
“Good. Leave us,” said Kurogane, too preoccupied to notice the command in his voice; the innkeeper swallowed, disappearing from his sight as surely as his workers had, and by the time the room’s door rattled shut behind him, Kurogane had already taken Fai by the arm and all but dragged him into the adjoining bathroom.  
  
“I don’t understand,” spluttered Fai, but Kurogane was in too much of a rush to explain; without so much as a how-do-you-do he pushed the black and bloodied star across the tiles and into the waiting tub, a great wave of almost-boiling water slopping up and over its sides. Steam rose as soon as Fai hit its surface, the icy cold of demon blood neutralised by the steaming heat. Fai disappeared briefly into the depths of the huge bath -it was more than big enough for a whole family, let alone a lone man, even if he was tall by the standards of most- and when he surfaced, he came up gasping, brackish water sluicing down his face in filthy runnels. “Kurogane, please!”  
  
It was his name more than anything else that snapped him out of his single-minded focus and forced an explanation as he rolled up his sleeves past his elbows. “We have to get that stuff off you,” Kurogane said shortly. “Demon blood does terrible things to human bodies, I’ve seen it myself-” and he was not going to illustrate them either, no, not if he wanted to sleep at all for the next few nights, “-so stay still and let me work.”  
  
Fai gaped at him, but yielded quickly enough, letting Kurogane pour bucketful after bucketful of water over him and suffering the attentions of a scrubbing brush with begrudging acquiescence, but it was after Kurogane had drained and refilled the tub for the second time -its steaming water running mostly clear, leaving pale skin clean and unmarked once more- and started on the bloody mess of his hair that the star finally protested the rough handling he’d been given.  
  
“It stings,” whined Fai, and for a creature that was probably several thousand years older than Kurogane he was doing a brilliant impression of a petulant child.  
  
Kurogane snorted. “It’s a scalp wound- what, did you expect it to tickle?” Flakes of dried blood sluiced away beneath the cupful of warm water he poured over the top of Fai’s head, smoothing it through the wet and twisted locks with his fingertips. He wasn’t too gentle about it either, even if he wasn’t particularly rough; better he was thorough now than to risk future infection after all. Fai hissed in protest, jerking away as his fingers probed the cut- but Kurogane had a handful of slippery-soft hair firmly in his grip and he wasn’t going far.  
  
“Stay still. If I don’t clean this, you’ll regret it later.” It was a deep slice, but the edges were relatively neat for all that they were raw and red and the thick clots darkening the idiot’s shimmering hair were sign enough that the bleeding had stopped some time ago. Left alone, it would probably heal of its own accord just fine, with a dressing to help it knit- but Kurogane wasn’t taking any chances. Even if Kurogane had survived the bath in demon blood he’d taken –the first and the only one to do so, and no-one knew why- the chill of it had snaked into his bones and left him with a curse that haunted him; he’d be damned if he let the star get away from him without a thorough scrubbing. Even if that meant he had to get in the damn tub and do it himself.  
  
The water level rose as Kurogane clambered over the lip of the bath, sloshing about his legs and soaking through his breeches, leaving him wet to mid-thigh as he dropped into the tub. It was more than big enough for the both of them, but Fai started away from him all the same. “Are you hurt anywhere else?” He demanded, grabbing onto a lean arm and dragging Fai closer; a wave surged between them and slopped over the rim of the bath as Kurogane pulled him upright, froth and foam and bubbles sloshing down his pale chest in a slick rush as he rose to his feet.  
  
“I don’t think so,” said Fai quietly, barely loud enough to be heard over the gurgle of the drain. Steam rose from wet skin in lazy spirals, wisping into nothing in the cool air, and every inch of him was pale and clean and unmarked- at least, all the bits of him that Kurogane could see. Which was quite a lot, really, considering the star was  _stark naked_ \- standing there bare as a babe with the water lapping gently at the tops of his thighs, soaking the tips of the tangled locks of hair that spilt down his back and stuck to his shoulders in wet strands.  
  
Kurogane blinked, dragging his gaze up to Fai’s face and keeping it there with all the willpower he could muster, aware that he was probably staring but not really able to stop. It was different, seeing Fai like this; this wasn’t some stream in the middle of the forest, and he wasn’t a stranger now- and it was more affecting than it had right to be.  
  
“Are you all right?” continued Fai, after three or four heartbeats that hammered in Kurogane’s chest. “Only, your ears are turning red and-”  
  
“I’m fine, thank you,” managed Kurogane, biting the words off with an embarrassed growl. “I should be asking that of you, anyway, because sure as hell _I_  wasn’t the one who waded into the thickest mess of shadow-spawned demons in the  _whole damn village_  with no weapon expecting to come out the other side in one piece-”  
  
“No,  _you_  were the one who lost his head to battle-lust and marched up to the biggest demon there to swing his sword about like he was collecting severed limbs!” countered Fai, eyes glittering with an anger that his toothy smile did little to hide. “I know you’re only human, Kuro-thinks-he’s-clever, but that wasn’t very smart at all- you should leave the demon-slaying to those with a talent for it!” The long finger that waggled beneath his nose made him scowl, jerking back and dropping his hand from Fai’s forearm as a needling flash of anger spiked through him. He was being chastised like a naughty child, and for what- trying to save Fai’s life?  
  
“Just- just  _shut up_ ,” snapped Kurogane. “Demons are dangerous, and not something you can just play around with like you do with everything else. So what if you can burn them to ashes with only a touch- you’re a  _star_ , what do you know of what it’s like to live in a world where the shadows come to life at night and-”  _eat your family_  “-attack your village? You’re too far removed from everything that happens down here on the ground to judge me for my actions.” His temper was rising now, filling him up with a sick ache that ate away at him from the inside out, roiling in his gut with icy tendrils and making his hands shake- and he wasn’t the only one angry, judging by the spluttering flare dancing over pale skin like a torch struggling to light.   
  
“You got hurt, in case you didn’t notice- smacked over the head with a dirty great spiked limb that laid your scalp open,” growled Kurogane, forcing the words out through gritted teeth, forcing down the black rage that flickered in the corners of his vision with more success than he’d ever had before.  _Not here, not now, not again. Don’t let it take you over. Don’t let it win._ “If you were a human like the rest of us,” he managed eventually, dragging in a slow breath as the pounding in his ears died away, “that blow would have killed you, so don’t you dare act high and mighty with me. You’re arrogant, and, and  _annoying_ \- and you have stupid hair.”  
  
The heated glow building about Fai died, snuffed out like a pinched candlewick. “Eh?” His hands flew to the top of his head, clutching at the pale, blood-speckled mess that crowned him, and the look on his face was as if Kurogane had kicked a puppy in front of him. “I’m arrogant and annoying and you _hate my hair_? What in the heavens did it ever do to you?” Beneath his horrified expression, there was a smile twitching at his mouth- a thin, wry one, nothing like the too-luminous grin he normally favoured the world with and much more likeable because of it.  
  
Kurogane snorted. “Are you kidding? How practical is hip-length hair you let flow free? You’re just inviting an enemy to grab it and drag you to the ground.” He reached out, snatching up a soft handful and tugging firmly to prove his point. “At least tie it up if you’re going to wear it long. You wouldn’t have that nice cut on your head if you had.”  
  
Fai laughed, tipping his head back so that his hair slipped through Kurogane’s fingers. “And what would you know, mister short-and-spiky?”  
  
“My father wore his hair long, as did my mother.” It felt strange to say that, an absent-minded stretch of an old scar; he hadn’t spoken about his parents in years, and it was more than a little surprising that he could now, even in passing. “I know more than you think. Turn around.”  
  
Fai blinked at him again. “Sorry?”  
  
“You’re disgrace- I can’t let you walk around like that, it’s embarrassing.”  
  
The bottle he grabbed from the side-board was probably shampoo- it certainly frothed between his fingers easily enough, slippery-smooth as he kneaded a palmful into Fai’s scalp. The star didn’t protest, but the darting glances Fai shot over the arch of his shoulder and back at Kurogane were more than a little confused. Kurogane couldn’t say he didn’t feel much the same, actually- he had no clue what the hell was he doing. Not washing someone’s hair –he’d done that before, just not for a while, not since he’d bathed with his parents as a child- and the process was relatively simple... but he couldn’t say for the life of him what had actually possessed him to clamber into the damn bathtub in the first place.  
  
“Hm~mm,” mumbled Fai, after a little while, “feels nice.” His voice was absentminded and soft, drawing Kurogane from his thoughts and back down to earth with a thump. Fai’s shoulders slumped, a slow easing of his stiff posture, and when Kurogane’s fingers scraped against his scalp, nails dragging through tangled locks, the star hummed lowly in the back of his throat. Through the suds, beneath the last clinging flecks of blood and the final traces of ichor, the pale strands of his hair were  _glowing_ , a slow tingling warmth that hummed through Kurogane’s fingers, crackling up his arms all the way to his elbows- and it wasn’t just Fai’s hair, either; his skin was alight in a way that Kurogane hadn’t seen since the battle- and unlike that fierce radiance, this was a softer, gentler shine that made the foam that dripped down Fai’s shoulders and trailed down his back gleam with abstract shimmers.  
  
The sight of it was strange, unnatural... and impossibly beautiful. “You’re... shining,” Kurogane murmured, unable to keep the awe from his voice- but as soon as he said the words, that light winked out.  
  
“What?” said Fai, turning half-around to look at him again; there was nothing but confusion on his face, no trace of that unearthly glow lighting his features. “Did you say something, Kuro-splash?”  
  
“No. Keep your mouth shut or you’ll get soap in it.”  
  
Mercifully, Fai did as he was told, keeping mouth and eyes all closed as Kurogane poured cupful after cupful of water over the long and sodden fall of his hair; as clumsy as his hands were with almost anything that wasn’t a sword, he still managed to comb through tangles and snarls with his fingers, leaving the silky mess of it smooth once more. Fai was quiet, blessedly so –for once that quick tongue of his still and silent- and between the soft sounds of the water falling and the muted sounds of the world outside their chambers, the hush that fell was almost... peaceful.  
  
It was too easy to let himself ease into a rhythm, Kurogane losing himself in the repeated brush of his hands just the same as he could lose himself in the fall of his sword, the movement of his feet as he practiced drill after drill, the ache in his limbs after a day spent exhausting himself through training enough to let him sleep dreamlessly... so that he actually jumped when Fai spoke after into the thoughtful silence that filled the bathchamber from wall to wall was not entirely his fault.  
  
“That cut on my head doesn’t hurt anymore- oh, did I startle you Kuro-pensive?”  
  
“No,” snapped Kurogane, even though Fai had. “Stay still and let me look at it.”  
  
Beneath the heavy locks of Fai’s sodden hair, the bloody slice was gone; unmarked skin met his fingertips where they trailed over the place of the cut, and any redness or swelling there might have been was also absent. There wasn’t even a scar. If Kurogane had not seen the gore painted wet and red over the side of Fai’s face with his own eyes, he might not have believed that there had been any injury at all... but as it was, he’d seen it for himself and was more than a little unnerved at how quickly it had faded.  
 _  
Maybe it’s a star thing..._  
  
“Hn,” was what he said though, little more than an acknowledging grunt as he rapped Fai lightly on the head with his knuckles. “You’re fine- you haven’t got a scratch. Guess you’re tougher than you look.” His hand slipped to Fai’s shoulder almost entirely by accident, and the sensation of slippery-wet skin beneath his palm reminded Kurogane forcibly of the fact he was still in the bathtub with a naked man; regardless of the fact that said naked man was actually some celestial body fallen to earth, the naked bit was still pretty damning and he really should get out of the bath. Helping an injured comrade was one thing, washing the hair of someone who obviously couldn’t do it properly themselves another, but lingering long past necessity was more than a little dubious.  
  
Water sloshed out onto the tiles as he clambered over the edge of the bath, his bare feet slipping a little- but Kurogane didn’t lose his footing even if he hurried to grab a towel. “Finish your bath,” he muttered, looking away as he wound it about his waist, soaking up the worst of the water from his wet clothes. “I’ll bathe when you’re done.”  
  
“Alright,” said Fai cheerfully, sinking lower in the tub; one bare leg came to rest over the rim of the bath, heel drumming lightly against the outside of the tub. “I won’t be much longer, I’m sure,” he added, but by then Kurogane was already half way out the door, and with the way his face was flushing he didn’t dare look back.

* * *

In spite of what he had said to Kurogane, the water in the bath was long past tepid by the time Fai stepped out of it, but the way it felt –the heat bleeding from the water in lazy spirals of steam, his limbs growing heavy with a tiredness that left him drowsy and now the cool air hitting his wet skin and setting him to shivering- was like nothing he’d ever experienced before, and he couldn’t be blamed for lingering. It was strange, having a body like this- everything felt so  _real_  now, all his senses alive and sparking; all these new and wonderful sensations leaving him all but glowing with a contentment he hadn’t felt since before he fell.  
  
It didn’t feel like home, and it wasn’t anything like Yuui- but it was something he could get used to.  
  
When Fai left the bathroom –wrapped in a thick, soft towel, and that was another thing he had to get used to, how nice it was to be wrapped in something so plush and comfortable- Kurogane was sitting on a trunk propped up by the wall, bent over with his long legs stretched out in front of him and facing towards the roaring fire as he towelled off wet hair. Wetter hair than it had been before actually, dripping down onto his face now that he was looking up at Fai, and soaking through the white linen of what was a new and clean shirt- and new breeches too, their cuffs rolled up to bare his ankles.  
  
Fai blinked. “Eh? I thought you were going to bathe after me?”  
  
“Didn’t want to wait for the boiler to heat up again,” grunted Kurogane, pulling free the towel half-draped around his neck. “You were taking ages, so I got myself some water from the well.” There was a copper basin near the fire, tipped upwards to dry; the firelight bounced brassy shadows off its polished back and glinted them around the room, and not far from it was a pile of filthy cloth that Fai vaguely remembered as being the same shirt and breeches Kurogane had all but ripped off him in the rush to get him into the tub and wash the demon blood from his skin.  
  
“Ah,” said Fai quietly. He had no clothes in the first place, and now everything Kurogane had lent him was caked with gore, thick and black and crusted all into the fabric’s weave- except for the places where they were singed, cracked and curling around their burnt edges. Not even fit for rags, really, and Fai all but shuddered at the thought of having to drag them back on again. Why couldn’t he just go without?  _He_  didn’t care about being naked, so why should everyone else?  
  
Kurogane sighed abruptly, startling Fai from his thoughts; the dark-haired man flung his damp towel across the room to sling neatly over the back of a wooden chair by the wall in an easy throw. “Don’t even bother. We may as well throw them on the fire, that’s all they’re good for. The innkeeper’s wife brought us some new ones, anyway- that’s where these came from,” he added, plucking at his shirt. “There’s a pile on the bed; just take what fits you and grab some spares. You’ll probably need them, and you can use that cloak there as a bundle.”   
  
Still holding onto his towel, Fai poked at the pile of clothing, unfolding a soft-looking pair of worn but sturdy breeches and a long shirt, as well as a coat, some socks and a strip of leather that he couldn’t figure out the purpose of; the rest of the clothes he vaguely understood –they were much the same as what Kurogane had lent him in the first place- but this was new. “That’s a belt,” said Kurogane, sounding amused. “You’re lucky- the innkeeper has a son who’s the same height as you, but you’re skinnier. You’ll need those to hold your pants up, at least until you get ones that fit you better; just lacing them won’t help. Or I could give you a piece of rope like before if you can’t figure out how to use it.”  
  
“I’m not stupid,” said Fai primly, dropping his towel to struggle into his new clothes. “These are new to me, that’s all. I daresay if you had to live as I lived you wouldn’t know the first thing about celestial movements and aural manipulation, or how to survive a solar flare. Besides, I like being naked better then dressing myself in these wrappings- at least if I’m naked I can feel the breeze on my skin.”  
  
“You won’t like it so much when it starts to rain,” said Kurogane dryly. He wasn’t trying to turn around this time; Fai supposed Kurogane thought it was a bit pointless considering he’d been the one to tear Fai’s clothes off in the first place. Not to mention they’d all but shared a bath together and wet clothes were almost as good as no clothes when it came to becoming familiar with someone. “Ah, you don’t need to put your boots on,” he added, startling Fai as he sat down on the edge of the bed to do exactly that.  
  
Fai frowned. “Eh? But you said before if I walked around barefoot outside, I’d likely cut my feet up.”  
  
“You don’t need shoes on this time of night,” said Kurogane bluntly, crossing the room to the bed and turning down the blankets that covered it before taking a seat also, the thick mattress sinking down under his additional weight. “I don’t know about you, but I’m tired.” Even as he said it, he was loosening the cuffs of his shirt, the laces that kept his shirt closed across his chest; Fai blinked in utter confusion as Kurogane looked back at him with a puzzled expression. “You’re not going to bed?”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“To bed. To sleep,” said Kurogane, speaking slowly as though to a child. “That side of the mattress is yours, you’ve got half the blankets, and the fire is banked for the night. The bed’s big enough for both of us, unless you’d rather sleep on the floor...?”  
  
There was nothing Fai could think to say to that. He knew of the concept of sleep, of course, had even seen Kurogane succumb to it himself- but it was something that Fai himself had never experienced. Dwelling in the heavens there was no clear distinction between night and day, no seasons turning across the world; he had known no need for rest, sustained entirely by the light that burnt within him and the companionable glow of Yuui’s presence, so it was strange indeed to think of lying down and closing his eyes for several hours. Not to mention the idea of doing so besides another living being. The bed was large enough for two, certainly, but there would barely be a handful of space between them; if he reached out his hand it would surely brush against Kurogane’s own. Didn’t humans consider such things to be intimate, something to share only between family and lovers?  
  
But while he was thinking about it, Kurogane had evidently made up his mind; snorting in annoyance, he climbed beneath the covers, pulling them up and over his shoulders, his broad back turned to Fai as he made himself comfortable. “Look, I don’t care if you want to stay up all night thinking, but I’m warning you now- if you keep me from going to sleep, you’ll be doing it outside.” There wasn’t much of him showing above the covers, mostly dark hair and one arm where it rested on the blankets, but Fai couldn’t help thinking Kurogane sounded quite comfortable as he bedded down, and the tiredness in the man’s voice carried through even without seeing his face. “And quit looking at me,” his bedmate mumbled gruffly, “can’t sleep with your eyes on my back.”  
  
Chastened, Fai lay down as well, but above the covers this time; he rolled quickly onto his side, his back to centre of the bed and leaving as much space as he could between them both without tumbling off the edge of the mattress. As he lay in the growing darkness, there was a warmth to his face that Fai had never felt before, a steady flush that lingered well past the fire burning low; it smouldered in his chest like coals, spreading through him with a tingling glow that made his head swim and his vision blurry- and even though he knew he didn’t  _need_  to, it wasn’t long at all before his eyes drifted closed and he slipped into the easy drowsiness that seemed to follow even the mere thought of sleep.  
  


* * *

As warm, buttery sunlight crept across his face, Kurogane woke to three realisations. The first was that he hadn’t closed the curtains properly, which explained the sunbeams touching his face with gentle fingers. The second was that he’d slept past the sun rising, something so uncommon that the understanding he’d actually done it was enough to pull him from a sound sleep and entirely into wakefulness; he could count on one hand the number of times he’d woken later than early morning, and for almost all of them he’d been sick or badly injured. Unusual as it was though, it wasn’t enough to explain the goosebumps that broke over him in a shivering rush-  _that_  was the entirely the domain of the third realisation that dawned on him in much the same way as the morning had.  
  
A soft breath tickled the nape of his neck, raising the short hair there, and Kurogane’s fingers twitched in shock.   
  
He’d gone to sleep beside Fai, that he understood; the bed was big enough for two and he wasn’t such a bastard as to make the man sleep on the goddamn floor when it was easy enough to share. What he  _didn’t_  understand was how the arm’s length of distance that had been separated them when he’d first closed his eyes had somehow evaporated during the night, Fai coming over to his side of the mattress and spooning up behind him so close that he could feel the slow rise and fall of that chest in perfect time with his own. Slender arms had wound around his waist like ivy climbed stone, clinging and tight; the tip of Fai’s nose was buried in his hair. Those long legs had tangled with his, Fai’s toes pressing warm against his ankles, and the undeniably intimate fit of their bodies raised enough heat between them that his thin shirt was damp with sweat in all the places they pressed together.  
  
Fai sighed in his sleep, a long, slow exhalation that melted soft against the slope of Kurogane’s shoulder; long tresses of silky hair stirred by that breath brushed against his skin, clinging where it caught on his clothes and spilling over his arm when Fai nuzzled closer, and in spite of himself Kurogane felt his toes curl. His eyes closed, unhurriedly, his thoughts dripping as slowly as honey from the comb as slender fingers knotted in his shirt, pulling the fabric tight; Fai shuddered against him, caught in the grip of some dream, and that small motion alone was enough to push him across the line into new and uncharted territory. Kurogane felt hot now, too hot, hot all over; hotter than the thick covers could have accounted for, more than the heat of the star at his back could be responsible for, and the pounding in his chest was dizzying as his blood drained southwards to pool as an unfamiliar ache in his belly. He’d never been held like this,  _touched_  like this –too busy, too distant, too wrapped up in smithing and hunting and the scars of his past to let anyone get close enough to push past it all- and now that he  _was_ , and by someone who had no idea he was doing it no less, it took barely a handful of heartbeats more before it was just too much.  
  
One hand fisted tight in the blankets, snapping them off him in a brutal jerk; Kurogane rolled out of the bed in one quick movement that tore him out of Fai’s embrace, and the star came awake with a startled grunt. “Uhm?” mumbled Fai, squinting up at him through hazy eyes; his clothes, the covers, his hair- all of it was a rumpled mess. “Wha’s h’ppninm’?”  
  
“Get up,” rasped Kurogane, throat dry and scratchy; his tongue felt like dusty parchment in his mouth and his face- his face was on  _fire_. “It’s past dawn- we overslept. We have to get moving.”  
  
Fai groaned, flopping face down onto the bed. “You could have told me that the worst part of going to sleep is the waking up,” he muttered thickly, muffled by the sheets but still mostly audible; his head rolled to the side, one blue eye glaring up at him through the mess of hair that fell over his face. “Do we have to?”  
  
“Yes,” barked Kurogane, irrationally angry and blaming it all on the whining figure that had both caused and ruined the most peaceful sleep he’d had in a very long time. “Get up, wash your face, and put your boots on. We’ve got a long way to go today, and I’m not walking slow for your sake.”  
  
Fai groaned again, the sound all but pathetic; he flopped out of bed and onto his feet with all the grace of a beached fish. “Kuro-grump, I think you got up on the wrong side of the bed. Aren’t you humans supposed to be all bright and perky in the morning?”  
  
“Not me,” growled Kurogane, thrusting Fai’s boots at his chest. “Move it.”   
  
Fai did as he was bid in mostly silence, grumbling under his breath about pushy humans as he did so, but by the time he’d gotten his boots laced up and Kurogane had done something with the star’s god-awful hair –binding it into a straight plait falling down his back to keep that silky mess mostly contained, and he wasn’t particularly gentle going about it either- he was back to his sunny self, blue eyes bright and wide and free of the haze of sleep that had softened them before.  
  
They thanked the innkeepers as they left, Kurogane insisting on paying even though he was told not to; he left the coins piled on the counter and refused to take them back. He did, however, accept a large loaf and several slices of cold pickled ham for breakfast, which they ate on the way back to the winding road- well, that  _he_  ate, anyway; Kurogane had glanced over his shoulder to make sure the star was following and found Fai picking out pieces of soft bread from his share and tossing them to feed the birds that flocked behind him, and it’d been all he could do to swallow back a sigh.  
  
“If you’re not hungry, that’s fine- but don’t  _waste_  it.”  
  
“I tried some, but it didn’t taste like much,” shrugged Fai. “I know you have to eat, but if that’s what food tastes like, then there’s nothing in it to appeal to me.”  
  
“Bread just tastes like bread,” said Kurogane, tearing a chunk out of his own loaf with his teeth, chewing briskly and swallowing. “It’s good when it’s fresh, but it’s mostly for putting stuff on. There’s better food in the world than just bread, though even that tastes pretty damn good if you’re starving.” He licked his lips free of the salt brine the ham had been pickled in, trying to figure out how to explain. “Look. When we get to the Spirit Markets, I’ll take you to the stalls that sell food –I’m sure they’re be  _something_  there, it’s a market even if it does mostly sell magic stuff- and you can try whatever looks or smells good and  _then_  tell me what you think about human food. What?” he added, stopping half-way through another bite.  
  
Fai was looking at him oddly. “You’d let me do that?” He still had that vaguely shocked sound to his voice again, like Kurogane had suggested something he just couldn’t wrap his head around, and it was honestly starting to annoy him a bit.  
  
Kurogane grunted. “It’s not as big a deal as you make it out to be. I’m not rich, but I’m not  _poor_ \- I’ve got the coin to spend it where I need it. Besides, you’re skinny enough as it is; I don’t think you’d eat much even if I offered it to you.” There didn’t seem to be anything else Fai could say to that, and Kurogane was finished his loaf and licking the last of the crumbs from his fingers by the time Fai spoke up again.  
  
“Kuro-ranger?”  
  
“Hn?”  
  
“What are the Spirit Markets like?”  
  
“Hell if I know,” said Kurogane brusquely. “Never been there. I just know they’re where the Witch of the Moon is, and she’s who I’m looking for. I’m not really interested in the market.”  
  
Fai seemed to take that in for a while, and the road beneath their feet had come to a long and winding slope through a large field –the tall grass sighing in the wind as they passed it, a great sloughing roll of sound that rippled on and on across the horizon- before he attempted conversation once more. “Your princess sent you on this journey, didn’t she? To find the Witch?”  
  
“She’s not my princess, she’s  _a_  princess- the Crown Princess of Clow, in fact,” corrected Kurogane. “I may know her, but she’s not mine.”   
  
The distinction was an important one to make; anyone who claimed as such would very quickly find themselves in the palace dungeons, awaiting the King’s leisure for their freedom. And considering that Clow was currently ruled by King Touya -he of the protective streak as wide as the castle moat and ten times as deep- who was adamant that the Crown Princess would take no suitors until she was well of age, they would be waiting a very long time indeed. It was besides the point, anyway; Kurogane cared about Sakura, yes, and was more grateful to her then he even knew how to express, but it wasn’t the kind of feeling that would make him go all courtly knight and start writing sonnets about her springtime beauty or whatever. “But yeah, it was her that sent me away.” He didn’t feel the need to explain it had been done to save him from the hangman’s noose; Fai had seen him when the madness took him over, he already knew how dangerous Kurogane was. “Why all the questions?”  
  
“I just want to understand,” said Fai absently; his quiet voice was barely audible under the susurrant hush of the billowing grasses around them. The wind stirred his hair around his face, little ghostly wisps tugged free from his braid by breezy fingers. “To go on a quest such as this... Kuro-seeker must need something very badly.”  
  
Kurogane stopped mid-stride. “If you want to know, just ask,” he said bluntly. “Don’t dance around it and drop hints, expecting that I’ll just tell you.”  
  
“Oh, but that would be so terribly rude!” Fai suddenly beamed at him, wide smile dazzling and glaringly bright- but it didn’t meet his eyes at all, and the contrast was sickening. “If I just ask, than Kuro-candid would have no choice but to answer me with the truth- he’s far too honest to think of a lie to save his feelings.”  
  
“I’ve no need to lie,” snapped Kurogane. “I’m not ashamed.” He looked away, walking faster now- Fai had to skip once or twice to catch up, even if he wasn’t carrying anything but the bundle of clothes he’d been given at the inn.  
  
“Then why didn’t he say something before, if Kuro-proud is so shame free?” There was something more than curiosity in those words, more than that subtly cruel teasing; there was a question, something Fai couldn’t say and probably didn’t even know he was asking- but it was there all the same, naked in his voice, and Kurogane couldn’t have missed it even if he didn’t understand it.  
  
“I just don’t believe in dwelling on the past, that’s all- thinking about all the ways it could have been different or what I could have done to change it achieves nothing in the end. What’s done is done and can’t be  _undone_ ; all you can do is look forward and move on in a situation like that.”  
  
“But what if you can’t?” blurted Fai, standing still in the middle of the road and making Kurogane stop to stare at him. “But what if you don’t understand how it happened or even what you can do to fix it?”  
  
“Then you keep trying anyway,” said Kurogane firmly, catching that questioning gaze with his own and holding it as long as he could bear. “That’s all anyone  _can_  do.” He reached out, snagging a thin wrist; Fai’s pulse thundered against his fingertips. “Standing in the middle of the road talking about it isn’t going to get you anywhere. Even if you’re scared, even if all you can do is  _walk_ , then you goddamn  _keep walking_.” He tugged firmly on the arm in his grip; Fai came stumbling up the road, his steps unsteady- but he picked up speed as he walked, and by the time he passed Kurogane by, it was his steps leading them both.  
  
They walked like that, for a little while- Kurogane’s hand curled about that thin wrist, the slow steady drumming of Fai’s calming pulse the only communication between them. The star made no effort to free himself from Kurogane’s grip either, and so it was his own actions that let his fingers slide loose, fingertips trailing over soft, warm skin as they brushed over Fai’s palm. “Thank you,” said Fai quietly. Even with the sun high above them, he could see the light that glowed soft beneath pale skin, casting a bright shadow over them both.  
  
“For what?” asked Kurogane, genuinely confused –he’d done nothing worthy of thanks, at least not on purpose- but no answer was forthcoming; Fai wouldn’t look at him and the silence that fell between them wasn’t exactly companionable enough that he felt he could ask, even if that starry glow lingered well into the afternoon.  
  


* * *

It was Kurogane that called an end to their travelling for the day, and while that wasn’t particularly surprising –he was the one who was leading this expedition, after all; Fai was merely following along, doing his best to keep up with that punishing pace- the fact that it was barely early evening, the sun still wavering on the horizon as he pulled them off the side of the road and into a lonely copse of trees standing in a nearby field, was. Kurogane had seemed to be the kind of man who would keep them walking until well into the night, leaving them to bed down with no light at all; it was more than passing strange to see him gathering wood for a small fire with every intent of camping beside it.   
  
“What,” Kurogane grunted, shoulders twitching beneath his cloak as he dropped his armful of firewood in the small patch of ground he’d cleared of dry twigs and leaves. “You keep looking at me.” The dim glow of the sun sinking below the horizon cast long, umber shadows over the landscape and picked out russet highlights in his dark hair. Sitting cross-legged in the sweet-smelling grass, Fai watched in fascination as that dusky skin flushed with a sudden ruddy tint before his eyes. “Stop that.”  
  
“I’m not allowed to look at you?” asked Fai mildly, tone genuinely curious.  
  
“Not like that you’re not,” grumbled his companion. He didn’t bother to clarify any further, leaving Fai to wonder what exactly his companion had meant even as he swung his sword off his shoulder, propping the sheath carefully against a tree; his satchel soon joined it, followed by his cloak, Kurogane rolling up the sleeves of his shirt as he crouched down and started spacing out a ring of soot-blackened rocks into a circle, each one the size of his palm and pitted with glossy scars from previous fires.  
  
“I didn’t see you unpack those.”  
  
Kurogane snorted, clearly amused. “I didn’t carry them with me, idiot- why would I carry a parcel of rocks around? I found them here, by the base of those trees. This site has been used as a place to spend the night before, and whoever camped here last left them behind for the next traveller. You can still the traces of their last campfire, and where they slept,” he added, waving a hand vaguely in the direction of a clump of grass that looked, to Fai’s eyes, exactly the same as every other clump of grass that surrounded them.  
  
Fai blinked. “Is that why we’re stopping so early- because this is a good camping spot?”  
  
“Something like that,” muttered Kurogane. He didn’t say anything more, working at the kindling with the steady efficiency that characterised everything he did; before long, the small flame he sparked off his flintstones was crackling merrily away, and the bright glow the fire cast over his features warmed the shadows in his eyes, setting them aglow with a light not unlike that of the sun setting behind him. “What?” he said again, apparently feeling the weight of Fai’s gaze on his face; it didn’t take long at all before his ears matched the rest of him, all but incandescent in the falling darkness.  
  
Fai smiled, and it wasn’t forced; an easy kind of happiness twitched at the corners of his mouth and curled soft in his belly. “Kuro-camper is good with his hands. I couldn’t have started something like that so easily on my own.”  
  
Kurogane snorted again. “It’s not hard- I just know what I’m doing, that’s all. Spending a night out in the open is hardly new to me.” He tucked the stones back into a pouch in his satchel, settling down into the rustling grass on the other side of the fire with a groan. “Besides,” he said, making himself comfortable, “all you have to do is wave a hand and set it on fire- like you did to those demons, back in that village.” There was nothing soft about his eyes now, that gaze sharp where it tracked over Fai’s face and prickling against his skin. “You burned them to ashes with barely a touch. I don’t think setting a few pieces of wood alight would be difficult for you.”  
  
Fai waggled a finger, forcing his smile to maintain maximum brightness even under the withering force of the look Kurogane was giving him. “Ah, but Kuro-flint is assuming I have control of my flames. Which I do  _not_.” As much as it pained Fai to admit it, it was still true- maybe Kurogane was right and he had scrambled his brains when he’d hit the earth at such high speed. At any rate, whatever was causing it, he couldn’t meaningfully control his inner fire... and by extension both the glow and the flames that were its manifestation. Which was something very depressing indeed, considering it all but defined him as a being. Without it, without his mastery of the starfire he’d been born of, what was Fai but someone who was half-way successful at destroying demons and had a tendency to shine at inappropriate moments? “If I tried to set that log alight, why, I might just end up burning the whole forest down around our ears instead.”  
  
“We’re not in the forest,” said Kurogane bluntly. “We’re in a field. But I get your point.”  
  
A silence fell then, and while it wasn’t exactly uneasy it wasn’t exactly  _welcoming_  either, leaving Fai to sit unspeaking as Kurogane concentrated on building a steady bank of embers for their campfire, feeding it bits of wood and twig with a single-minded determination that said they wouldn’t go cold tonight. Fai leant forward, rearranging his knees to drop his chin atop them, and as he watched he felt his thoughts settle into a quiet cohesion.  
  
He still didn’t understand Kurogane’s motivations for helping him, but maybe he didn’t have to. As gruff as the younger man played himself out to be, there was a kindness in his actions that Fai could hardly deny; he’d seen it for himself in word and deed, had it laid upon his shoulders like that heavy cloak, which while worn and tattered around its edges, was still warm. Perhaps it was something that did not need to be understood to be appreciated, and he could simply accept Kurogane as the kind of man who would help a stranger if he could and think nothing of it, an ingrained habit as much a part of everything that defined him as the breadth of his shoulders or the strength in those big hands was.  
  
But this did not explain why Fai was drawn to him so, beyond the boundaries of mere appreciation for such kindness; it did not explain why it felt so right to just follow in Kurogane’s wake, to walk the path the younger man laid before him. There  _had_  to be a reason behind that feeling, because it was something he’d never experienced before- something that could not be justified by the trappings of this mortal body alone. He’d thought only stars could be drawn to each other in such a way, pulled into a shared orbit to revolve around one another for eternity; he’d seen it himself with the pairs of twin stars that speckled the heavens, been born into such a binary system himself until he moment he was shaken free- it was more than a little uncomfortable to think that he could so easily be charmed into such gravity by someone else.  
  
On the other side of the fire, Kurogane sighed. “I know I’m going to regret asking this, but. Copper for your thoughts?”  
  
Fai blinked. “What do coins have to do with my thoughts?” It was a stalling question more than anything else; he did actually understand the concept of monetary exchange for goods and services -even if his thoughts were probably only worth a half-copper, if that- but if playing up his ignorance meant he got out of answering what he’d been thinking, then so much the better. He was losing faith in his abilities to distract Kurogane from anything -from _everything_ , not just his own thoughts- with every passing hour they spent together; those too-sharp eyes saw far too clearly where Fai would have really preferred they didn’t.  
  
And true to form, Kurogane merely scowled at him. “ _Don’t_. If you don’t want to answer my question, fine- just say so. But play dumb with me again, and you can walk the rest of the way by yourself.”  
  
Ashamed and not exactly sure why, Fai ducked his head awkwardly, looking back down at his feet. His thoughts weren’t such he felt comfortable speaking, not since they all concerned the man sitting across from him, but he couldn’t say nothing- he wasn’t sure he could bear up under that searching gaze for too much longer. “Then tell me why,” he finally blurted, words escaping his mouth without any direction from his brain to do so, “tell me why you travel to see the witch.”  
  
There was a long pause, and for a moment he thought that perhaps he’d crossed some line he was not aware of- but then Kurogane spoke, his voice as low and soft as the firelight that flickered over his face and danced shadows in his eyes. “I’m cursed,” he said, and those words cut straight to the point, slicing through any half-thought misconceptions Fai might have had and matching exactly his suspicions about the darkness deep in bloody eyes. “That’s what demon blood does, if you get covered in it and it soaks through your skin. No one knows why I survived, when the demons killed everyone else in my village, but they left their mark on me all the same. You’ve seen how I am in battle,” he added, forcing Fai to meet his gaze with the sheer weight of his words alone. “It’s not just demons that have met their end on my blade.”  
  
Fai swallowed, and his breath was tight in his throat. There was no pity in that voice, self-directed or otherwise; just a weary kind of certainty. “Your princess-”  
  
“She sent me away. I killed someone I shouldn’t have, and the nobles wanted me dead for it. The king would have had no choice but to have me executed unless I could lift my curse and prove that I was innocent. And since the only one who knows how to do that is the Witch of the Moon, here we are.” One eyebrow twitched briefly, irritation flicking over his serious face. “And she’s not  _my_  princess- I told you that before. Get it right.”  
  
He was so  _grumpy_  about it, out of all the other things in the world he could have been mad over, that a laugh burst from Fai’s chest before he could stop it -because really, that  _face_ ; he couldn’t have stopped himself if he tried- the sound hanging heavy in the air even as he clapped his hands over his mouth to cram it back in. “I’m sorry,” Fai mumbled against his own fingers, words stumbling over themselves in their urgency. “I just couldn’t- and then you-” He spluttered to a stop, horrified that with everything he said he was just making it worse.  
  
Kurogane snorted. “It’s all right. I know what you were laughing at- believe me, if you were laughing about anything else I said, I would have gutted you for it. My temper’s not exactly the mildest, in case you haven’t noticed.” He sighed again, folding his arms behind his head and falling back against the grass, the long stalks rustling beneath his sudden weight. The silence between them spun out, thin and delicate as a thread from a spindle, and Fai was left holding the end of it, unsure exactly what he was supposed to say or do now.  
  
“Kuro-ranger?”  
  
“Mm?” Those sharp eyes were closed, his face relaxed and calm, but there was a wariness to the sleepy murmur all the same and maybe it should have worried Fai that he could read the moods on that surprisingly expressive face so easily so soon.  
  
“Thank you for telling me,” Fai whispered, “about why you’re travelling, I mean. It makes me feel a little better to know I’m not the only one who needs something so badly.” He hadn’t meant to say that, and his own honesty surprised him; it would have been easier to lie or to say nothing at all, but the words had slipped out of their own volition and couldn’t be taken back now.  
  
“You’ve really got to stop thanking me for things no one needs to be thanked for,” mumbled Kurogane, words almost lost in a yawn as he settled into his grassy bed, rolling to one side and making himself comfortable. He looked younger than Fai was used to seeing him when he was tired like that, and it did strange things to the slow pounding of his heart in his breast. “It’s starting to get annoying,” he added, voice a drowsy murmur. “I don’t want to have to tell you again.”  
  
“I’m sorry, I’ll try to remember,” laughed Fai softly, the words breathless and unvoiced. He felt a little lightheaded now, his pulse building to a dizzying hum as something slow and sweet unfurled inside his chest.  _I feel like this because of him_ , he realised with a start, and the shock of it was enough to drive him to silence.  
  
But Kurogane was already asleep, slipping gently into slumber between one heartbeat and the next. It was a small mercy that he was sleeping so, because if Kurogane was sleeping, he could not see the way Fai watched him, could not see the way his hands shook so slightly as he folded them carefully in his lap -carefully, because they itched to  _move_ , to reach out across the fire and towards that restful face and not only was he likely to set his sleeve on fire if he were to do something so stupid, but there was no telling how his companion would react to such a gesture- and for that, Fai was well and truly grateful.


	4. Chapter 4

Kurogane’s brisk pace was the same as always, dismissing any hopes that Fai might have clung to for an easier walk now their journey was nearing an end; never mind that the city walls were well in sight and that the road they joined from the plains was crowded with pilgrims and merchants making way to the Spirit Markets- there would be no slowing down for Kurogane or the poor, tired soul that happened to be travelling with him, and so it was that the next morning found Fai in low spirits indeed.  
  
“Don’t drag your feet,” grumbled Kurogane, hustling him along the winding trail and past the drifting groups of carts and horses. “Just because we can see it doesn’t mean we’re there yet.” True to form, the younger man was just as cranky in the morning as he was any other time of day, regardless of how much sleep he’d actually gotten in his grassy bed; probably more than Fai at any rate, considering he’d spent almost the whole night watching the dreaming movement of those sharp eyes beneath their heavy lids. And what time he hadn’t spent watching Kurogane had been frittered away in anxious worry; too long staring at the stars above and wondering how Yuui fared alone- and how Fai himself would fare if he could not get home.  
  
Anything at all, no matter how frightening to think of, had been better than considering the breathless feeling Kurogane had left him with mere moments before he had succumbed to slumber.  
  
Even thinking about it now made his heart race uncomfortably fast, enough to distract him from everything else around and when Kurogane made a thoughtful noise, Fai almost jumped. “Hn. If we keep this pace up, we’ll be there by midday. Hopefully we can find the witch in short order- we’ll need the time to look for rooms at an inn.” Kurogane adjusted the strap of his satchel, his eyes focused on the distant walls of the city before him- perhaps he hadn’t noticed anything different with Fai’s composure even if he was distracted.  
  
“An inn? No camping? How strange, Kuro-ranger- and here I thought you were discomfited not to be sleeping under the stars.” Fai couldn’t quite muster the brightness necessary to pull the tease into being anything more than half-hearted, and the failing was obvious under the sharp gaze Kurogane raked him with.  
  
“If you’re not feeling cheerful, don’t try to fake it- it’s painful to watch,” he muttered, and the look on his face was disapproving.  _Or maybe not. So he does see through me, then._  Fai couldn’t manage anything more than a bland smile to change the topic, either, wilting a little under that continued observation, but maybe Kurogane took pity on him as he just grunted and looked away once more. “Anyway. We’ll need some place to stay the night, once we’re done talking with the witch- there’s no telling where she’ll send us next, and I don’t know about you, but I’m not starting out another journey after spending another night sleeping on the hard ground. I might be used to sleeping out, but it doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate a warm bed when I’ve got one.”  
  
There was nothing Fai had to say in response to that, so the conversation died as quickly as it had started, leaving them in silence that was only uncomfortable on Fai’s own part. His companion seemed not to care one whit whether they spoke, and the quiet that fell was quickly drowned out by the noise of their surrounds- the carts, the horses, even the drifting conversation of the other groups on the road; all of it was matched for the panicked flutter of his heartbeat, echoing louder in his chest than Fai could stand to bear.  _I don’t know why you make me feel like this_ , his thoughts whispered, and they too were muted by the thudding of his pulse.  _I only know I shouldn’t_.  
  
A big hand closed gently about his arm. “Hey. Do you want to stop for a moment?”  
  
“Eh?” The sound left his lips before Fai could even think about it; somehow, the two of them were standing on the roadside beneath the drooping shade of a heavy-topped tree, the passers-by eyeing them curiously, and Kurogane was looking down at him with those sharp eyes and his forehead creased in concern. Fai could only blink, unable to even summon enough wit to respond; his head felt stuffed ear-to-ear with soft cotton, his thoughts as slow and muted as though he were underwater and losing his breath by every passing second. “I’m sorry,” he managed, and the words were mumbled and unclear. “I’m just a little lost right now.” It wasn’t what Kurogane had asked, but he seemed to get Fai’s meaning well enough- and it was a good thing one of them did, considering Fai had no idea what in heaven’s name he’d been talking about himself.  
  
“You didn’t sleep at all last night, did you,” said Kurogane brusquely; it wasn’t quite an accusation, but there was disapproval in his voice all the same. “Idiot. I don’t care if you can take out demons with your bare hands- you’re in a human body now, and you need to take care of it. You can’t go without rest.”  
  
It was on the tip of Fai’s tongue to counter with how he’d never needed it before, how he had spent millennia unresting and watching for demons, launching into brilliant, burning combat by Yuui’s side with no sleep at all- but the words wouldn’t come out, and it was all he could do to blink dazedly up at the younger man standing over him. His chest ached oddly, and without knowing he was doing it, one of Fai’s hands rose to press over the bruising pressure that throbbed in his breast.  
  
“We’re stopping for lunch,” said Kurogane firmly; the tone of his words brooked no argument.  
  
“What? But it’s barely mid-morning and the city is so close!” Fai protested, shaking off the hand curled lightly about his arm. “You said it yourself- we’ll be there by midday if we keep going, so let’s keep walking-”  
  
He tried to brush past Kurogane, he really did, but the grip that snagged his elbow was not something he could break; strong hands, made stronger by the sword they wielded -and the lives they had saved- reeled him back into the shade, spinning Fai about and pushing him back against the trunk of a tree and down to sit at its roots before he could do anything to object. “Enough,” growled Kurogane, and the low pitch of his voice did strange things to the ache in Fai’s chest. “An hour will make no difference.  _You_  are going to sit here, and wait-  _I_  will be back with something for us both to eat. Star or not, you can’t manage on an empty stomach, and I should have known better to let you go without food for so long.”  
  
Kurogane left before he could say another word, leaving Fai to sit and stare at the length of his own legs spread out before him. “What am I doing, Yuui,” he mumbled, the words barely a breath; it wasn’t really a question and he was given no answer besides, the sky above him bright and blue and no stars in sight, everything he had ever known obscured by the brilliance of the sun. Slowly, he brought his legs up, resting his cheek against the slope of his knees, and the fall of his braid pulled heavy down his back as Fai closed his eyes, trying to push down as best he could the confusion of feelings that rolled anxiously inside him and steady his breathing into something resembling normalcy.  
  
“Hey. I said we’re stopping for lunch, not a nap.”  
  
Fai came awake with a start, barely even aware he’d fallen asleep in the first place; his eyes were blurry with tiredness as Kurogane shrugged off his satchel and cloak, laying his sword down in the grass as he came to sit beside Fai. He handed over a parcel wrapped in cloth, indicating Fai should take it with a nod of his head. “Ah. Lunch?”  
  
“Of a sort. You didn’t seem to like the bread and ham, so I figured something else might get you eating.” Kurogane busied himself unwrapping his own bundle, showing a half a braid of dark, herby bread and an orange fruit; much plainer fare than what Fai’s own meal was revealed to be, the napkin in his lap spilling open to show a collection of biscuits and pastries, each one sweet-smelling and delicately drizzled with something sticky and golden, shimmering like liquid sunlight in the dappled shade of the tree.  
  
“’at’s h’ney,” mumbled Kurogane around a mouthful of bread. Fai blinked at him and the younger man swallowed heavily before trying again. “Honey. Not sure if you know what that is, but it’s sweet- the princess likes sweets like that, though hers are usually a bit fancier. She’s got a whole team of cooks in the kitchen back home, and His Majesty himself is no slouch when it comes to biscuits. These are just what I bought from a travelling merchant taking her wares to market. She said they were good enough to tempt a fussy eater, and I figured that would do.” He tucked back into his bread, and Fai found himself staring back down at the treats in his lap for a good few minutes.  
  
“Go on,” said Kurogane eventually, finishing his bread and moving on to peeling his orange. Juice squirted around his blunt fingernails, dripping down his wrist in thin lines. “Eat. They won’t bite you, you know.”  
  
They did smell good, though, and his mouth was watering for what was probably the first time in his whole existence. Carefully, Fai picked one up and nibbled at its edge- and from the moment the flaky pastry -sweet and light and  _glorious_ \- touched his tongue, his appetite roared into life with a vengeance for its long denial. “Oh heavens,” he mumbled through a mouthful of sticky crumbs; the lush taste bloomed in his mouth, sweetness rushing down his throat and kindling a warmth in his belly that fluttered his eyes shut in pleasure, three biscuits disappearing in quick succession. “Oh, that tastes so _good_ ,” he moaned, and started when Kurogane snorted in amusement.  
  
“Heh. Figures you’d like those,” chuckled the younger man, bringing one hand up to his mouth. His tongue flicked out to trace the pulpy trail of juice winding down his wrist with a surprisingly delicate lick, and quite suddenly Fai’s mouth was as dry as dust. He coughed, covering his mouth so as not to spray crumbs, and when he swallowed it felt like sand had scraped the inside of his throat raw.  
  
“Here,” said Kurogane, fishing out the knife he kept sheathed on his belt and carving a section of fruit from his orange. He passed it to Fai with steady fingers. “It’s really juicy- it should settle your throat.”  
  
Fai nodded, unable to speak; true to Kurogane’s words, the citric juice burst sweet and sour on his tongue, melting into the taste of honey to wash a flood of wetness into his mouth and chase away the dryness that clogged his throat. Kurogane nodded briskly, as though in approval- but there was flush colouring his ears that hadn’t been there before, a flicker of something in red eyes that Fai couldn’t place. Whatever it was, it meant him no harm - _no demons here_ \- and did nothing to stop the slow swell of warmth rising inside Fai, the one that glowed softly in his limbs and flickered light below his skin.  
  
“Good,” said Kurogane quietly, his eyes tracking across Fai’s face. His gaze wasn’t soft by any means, still as sharp as ever- but the way it moved was gentle. “You stopped glowing for a while- it had me worried.” He said nothing else after that, finishing his fruit with intent, and leaving Fai to his biscuits. Not one caught in his throat after that, each morsel sweet and light and melting on his tongue, but the glow kindled by the moment, whatever it was, stayed with Fai long after his meal was finished.  
  
He was still glowing, faint in the light of the midday sun, by the time they joined up again with the travelling crowd; Kurogane said nothing more about it, but once or twice Fai caught a stray glance sent his way, and the look on his companion’s face that accompanied it could have almost been called a smile.  
  


* * *

It was early afternoon when they set finally foot through the gates of Spirit, later than he had hoped but still early all the same. People and horses and carts all came streaming through the great archways, and twice Kurogane had to pull Fai out of the way of some unobservant traveller or else have him knocked off his damn feet. Graceful and unstoppable in battle the star may have been, but he was wandering around gawking like a tourist, and it was going to get what little brains he had knocked out of his skull if he wasn’t careful- which apparently meant Kurogane had to be careful for him, because Fai was paying no mind whatsoever to where he stepped.  
  
Fai possibly walking under a cart was only one of Kurogane’s problems, however, because as they walked down the main avenue -through rows of houses and inns and roaming sellers, their carts loaded down with wares- it became increasingly obvious that he had no clue whatsoever where he was going.  
  
“Perhaps we could ask for directions, since Kuro-travels-unprepared forgot to bring a map,” mused Fai, nibbling genteelly on a biscuit he’d apparently saved from his lunch.  
  
Kurogane grunted in annoyance. “I’ve never needed a map before- I’ve always travelled by the stars.” Fai looked startled and little bit annoyed. “What? That’s what constellations are for,” grumbled Kurogane.  
  
“It’s one thing to hear the stories made up about you, myths and legends and poems- it’s another entirely to be used as a waypoint in the dark,” muttered Fai darkly, and for a brief moment the soft glow that had been with him all day so far dimmed. His low mood didn’t last for long though, Fai perking up into brightness once more as an idea struck him. “Ah! If Kuro-mapless has nothing to guide him -heavens know you cannot see stars in daylight- then perhaps he should ask for directions. I am sure that for someone so famous as the Witch of The Moon many of her fellow city-dwellers could give us directions!”  
  
Something deep in Kurogane’s soul grated under the idea of asking for directions, but even he could see the logic in it- and with the charming smile he knew Fai was capable of they were sure to find  _someone_  who knew where they could find the damn witch. “Fine. You take the left side, I’ll take the right.”  
  
They split the street between them, asking all who passed by- and within the first fifteen minutes of his searching, Kurogane was starting to feel on edge. Because everyone had heard of the Witch of the Moon, certainly- but none of them knew which fine house was hers. That, and the reactions he were getting were a mixed bag of anxiety as well. Some were delighted at the sound of the name, others uneasy; still more made the sign of the horns against magic- and  _that_  pissed him off, because his own mother had been all but a hedgewitch herself and she’d been the most decent person the world had ever known, thank you very much.  
  
But it was the few that looked at him with calm, composed eyes that got to him the most; the ones that met his question with a smile that was just a shade sorrowful and a murmured, “You’ll find her when you need her the most,” which, while certainly tragic and poetic and probably the stuff ballads were made of, was  _no goddamn help at all_. What the hell kind of answer was that? He needed to find the witch right now, and the misdirection he was getting from the townsfolk of Spirit wasn’t going to give him a street name or house number.  
  
“Hey,” he called out, catching Fai’s eye; the star looked over at him, one feathery eyebrow quirked and blue eyes agleam in the dappled shade that fell between buildings and the tree-lined avenue. “Any luck?”  
  
The star breezed on over, his boots tapping light steps across the cobblestones and braid swinging about his back. “Not really,” he admitted, and the curve of his mouth was more thoughtful than happy. He was still glowing, though, the faintest hint of a shine that Kurogane could barely see over the daylight bright around them- but the way static warmth tickled his skin even through his clothes as Fai drew closer let him know it was there for sure. “Everyone seems to think she has no fixed address, as though her home is the one that will appear when you’re really, really looking for it.”  
  
“Tch. That’s what I’m getting too,” muttered Kurogane, already scanning the skyline. The city seemed to be built around a hill, its peak in the middle and the markets curving around its base; they were something like half-way up it now, and no closer to finding an answer than they had been an hour ago.  
  
“Maybe,” said Fai softly, and then murmured something Kurogane couldn’t hear.  
  
“Maybe what?” he snapped, more for show than anything else- but then warm fingers trailed gently over his face in a touch he hadn’t invited, brushing shut his eyelids in the space between one blink and the next. “You better have a damn good reason for that,” he growled, the words all but rumbling with as much menace as he could muster, even with the weight of Fai’s fingertips holding his eyes shut.  
  
Fai laughed huskily, and with no sight to match it, the sound alone was enough to send a pleasant kind of tingle down his spine. “I think you’re looking too hard, Kuro-seeker. Keep your eyes closed and walk- I wager that if you open them when the time is right, you’ll have found exactly what you’re looking for.”  
  
It made a perverse kind of sense, considering they were dealing with magic here- but that didn’t mean Kurogane was looking to walk around a city as big as this one with his goddamn eyes shut and his defences down. When he said as such, Fai laughed again, and this time the edge of that voice -soft, dark, offering things far more intimate than he rightly deserved and the star even knew he was suggesting- sent more than a mere tingle rolling down his spine. Heat glowed in his belly in spite of himself, and a scowl tugged at Kurogane’s mouth even as the warmth of Fai’s fingers trailed away from his face and down his arm to lace them between his own. “Ah, but you’re not alone, Kuro-seeker; I’ll be here to hold your hand and keep you safe while you wander. The least I can do considering you’ve done the same for me.”  
  
He couldn’t argue with that. He probably should  _want_  to, but he didn’t, and his fingers curled around Fai’s hand before he could really stop them. Besides, knowing his luck, this would be exactly the kind of thing he had to do find the goddamn witch in the first place. “Fine. But if you drag me under a cart or off a dock somewhere, you’d better hope the heavens have mercy on you- because  _I_  sure won’t.”  
  
Even without seeing it, he could feel the glow of Fai’s smile. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”  
  
And so, trusting the hand that held his would not lead him astray -and wasn’t that something he’d thought lost to time, a memory from his long-gone childhood?- Kurogane walked. And walked, his eyes closed and his footsteps sure even in the face of the darkness that met his seeking gaze. He could still feel the world around them, hear the passage of people and the distant sounds of a city warming up to a busy day, but with his sight gone, there was nothing to distract him from the faint pull in his chest; the one that urged him to step  _this way_ , to take  _that corner_ , to dodge  _this alley way_ , turn  _left_ , double back and walk right  _up this hill_. He lost sense of time, of anything but the hand in his and the warmth of Fai beside him -because he could  _feel_  the star even if he couldn’t see him, a presence at his side like a light in the darkness, a bearing by which his compass was set- and when he found himself atop the hill, facing the coast judging by the salt he could taste on the soft breeze, Kurogane felt the urge to open his eyes in longer than he could remember.  
  
“We’re here.” The house before him was not small, but not as large as he could have imagined, even if it was stately; many windows looked out onto the street, curtained with velvet drapes, and a high fence and gate shielded a courtyard from all but those who would enter it. A fountain bubbled softly in the distance, and the scent of flowers mixed with the tang of the ocean in the wind.  
  
“I told you we would find it if you let yourself really look,” said Fai quietly. His hand was still warm in Kurogane’s own, and he made no move to free it. “So what happens now?”  
  
“I need... I need to speak with the witch. Alone.” The last word had slipped out before he could stop it, but it was no less true; something in him told Kurogane that he needed to speak on his own to find the answer he needed, as though having Fai beside him would colour what he needed to ask- and there was something else too, some half-thought question at the back of his mind, one that the star’s own presence made unclear and uneasy. He needed to think, to make a decision; it was not something he could do with whatever lay between them drawing tighter and closer as every moment passed. “I’d ask you to wait, but-”  
  
“I’ll wait.” The certainty in Fai’s voice made him pause. Aside from his desire to return home, he’d never heard the star sound so sure about anything. “I want to speak to her as well, and I daresay Kuro-courteous would extend the same honour to me. After all, he’s so  _very_  well-mannered.” There was a tease in his voice, but nothing harmful behind it; the blue eyes that met his own were as steady and clear as the sky above... but just as there were thundercloud on the distant horizon, so too was there something he couldn’t quite define in that gaze. “Go ahead,” said the star, his hand slipping free. “I get the feeling that there’s someone waiting to speak to you through there.”  
  
“Thank you,” said Kurogane after a long moment, longer than he would have liked to have lingered.  
  
Fai just grinned. “Now who’s thanking who for things that don’t need it?”  
  
The gates pushed open easy enough, moving soundlessly on oiled hinges, and Kurogane didn’t look back as he stepped through them, or even as he made his way up the courtyard path; it wasn’t the kind of thing he did. But he felt Fai’s gaze on him as though it were a living thing, a warmth and a weight that lingered on his shoulders and trickled awareness down his spine, and he could still feel it even as he stepped beyond the lee of an archway and up to a door that glided open at the faintest touch of his hand.  _Magic_ , thought Kurogane, annoyed, and the irritated sound that made its way through his lips was more for himself than for the door.  
  
He had things to do, witches to meet, questions to ask- thinking about Fai and what it felt like to have those eyes on him wasn’t going to help.  
  
With this in mind he stepped into the hallway with no hesitation, his footsteps ringing loud and sure across the floorboards- and came to an abrupt stop as he turned a corner, into the parlour and right before the house’s occupant.  
  
She was younger than Kurogane had really expected; something about the word ‘witch’ had made him picture an older woman, wreathed in incense-smoke and mystery, and her title alone was enough to inspire awe in the hearing of it... but instead he found himself looking down at a girl that couldn’t have been more than fifteen summers, her smile cheerful and charming for all that her head would barely reach his chest were she standing. “Hello, Kurogane,” she said sweetly, peering up at him with her hands clasped in her lap, her legs swinging beneath her heavy skirts as she perched atop a long, polished table. Long hair, dark as ink and threaded with ribbons and bells, tumbled down her shoulders in gentle waves; her face was sweet and rounded, the delicate point of her chin elegant for all that it was childlike. “Welcome to my house- you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”  
  
Kurogane stared. “You... you know my  _name_?”  
  
“Of course I do- I know your name as surely as I do my own.” Here she paused, as though waiting for him to ask, but evidently Kurogane had missed his cue because the girl merely sighed, shaking her head dismissively. “It’s  _Tomoyo_ , in case you cared to note it.” Kurogane blinked, unsure exactly what he was supposed to say here, but if Tomoyo had noticed his hesitance she disregarded it completely.  
  
“I know everything about you,” continued the witch; her violet eyes were dreamy and soft as she brought one hand around to cup her cheek, and the kind look on her face should have and would have been completely disarming but for the spark of something knowing that flickered in their depths. “Your name is Kurogane, and your father was a smith of some renown- it was he that forged the sword you carry on your back,” said the witch, her voice falling into a hypnotic murmur that raised the hair on the back of Kurogane’s neck to hear it, “and it was he that taught you how to use it. Your mother was your village’s healer and midwife, with green magic in her fingers, and she taught you how to sew the winter you came down with the red fever and were left bedridden because of it. You have seen nineteen summers, you can’t stand the taste of milk, and you have a weakness for candied ginger that you won’t admit to because real men don’t eat sweets- even if it was your father who had a similar weakness for those particular candies in the first place.”  
  
She paused again, tilting her head gently to the side as she looked up at him. “That’s not what you want to hear though,” she said quietly, “and it’s not what your princess sent you to see me for, is it?”  
  
Kurogane scowled sullenly, on his guard and wary. He was not afraid, but there was no comfort to be found under that gentle gaze, not with the words she’d just spoken. “You know so much, you tell me.”  
  
“You’re cursed.” It wasn’t a question. “And you’re hoping I can help you.” Her eyes were sad, now; coloured by some sorrow that seemed much too large for her small frame.   
  
“You can’t help me, can you.” said Kurogane. It wasn’t a question either, the spirits he hadn’t realised had risen falling just as quickly, leaving him with a sick, swooping ache in his belly. To come so far on the hope Princess Sakura had given him and to have it so quickly dismissed now he was here was not an easy thing to swallow.  
  
“I didn’t say that,” said Tomoyo quietly, all playfulness gone. “It’s true, though; I’m not the one you need to lift your curse- but your coming to me was not a waste of time. After all, it was your journey itself that gave you the means to find your own solution.”  
 _  
What-?_  
  
“Walk with me,” said Tomoyo suddenly, rising to her feet; the hem of her dress swept heavily over the floorboards as she brushed past him, and Kurogane was given no choice but to follow, glaring suspiciously at his surroundings as he was led down a long and slightly curving hallway. He passed by many doorways as he followed the witch, some hidden behind closed screens, others behind curtains of hazy, shimmering fabric- one was even shielded by string after string of glittering beads, each threaded with a magpie’s hoard and twinkling dimly in the smoky, subtle light that flowed through the shadowed hall.  
  
The walk seemed endless, each echoing step causing a spike of irritation to pound in his temples, but Kurogane kept his temper firmly reined in all the same; he was here to find a cure for the black rage that overtook him, not provoke it further. Besides, it would be just like a witch to speak in riddles and lead him in circles before she was done answering his damn question.  
  
“Listen,” he began, and stopped as his voice hung still and heavy in the unmoving air. In front of him, Tomoyo turned back a little, peering over her own shoulder with a curious expression.  
  
“Oh? It’s not much further now, Kurogane,” she said quietly, and as though her words were an omen –and the graceful curve of the hallway far sharper than he’d thought- the next three steps found them on the doorstep of some great gateway, late-afternoon sunlight drifting through its open arch. “I wanted to take you to my garden- I find it’s easier to talk beneath the open sky, don’t you?”  
  


* * *

There were clouds building over the distant shore, rolling in heavy and black across the sky to war with its shining blue; the breeze they brought with them from across the sea teased the air with the scent of salt and oncoming rain, stirring wisps of Fai’s hair about his face as he walked, and the aimlessness of his steps lead them to meander across the crazed patchwork of bricks and cobblestones beneath his feet.  
  
He wasn’t  _lost_  exactly- though he’d be lying if he said he knew where he was. He could see where he’d been, the slow rise of the hill behind him and the house with the fountain atop it where he’d been left to wander; it wasn’t as if he could deny Kurogane his wish to speak to the Witch of the Moon alone –not when the man had come so far and fought so hard to do so- and so he hadn’t, drifting aimlessly towards the noise and clutter of the markets crowding the streets down below.  
  
The Markets of Spirit in the Country of Jade were a chaos of noise and colour and cluttered, teetering stalls, people thronging each winding street in a crush of movement and life. Birds of every jewel-toned hue twittered songs that hung heavy in the air as he brushed past them, their wings spread like rainbows behind the bars of their cages; the dying afternoon light shattered in shards of sunlight across the polished brass of urns, glinted in the steely gleam of new-smithed swords and danced like a flame in the heart of stained-glass charms dangling from shining copper wires. Tapestries hung rich and heavy from every arch and beam of wood, scenes of great battles and exotic locales picked out in shimmering stiches across curtains of silk, and the drifting choir of cooking smells –sugar and spices, savoury and sweet, a mix of flavours so vibrant that as he breathed it in it almost brought tears to his eyes- made his stomach growl in greedy hunger as he walked past bubbling cooking pots and simmering roadside ovens. Now that his appetite had woken, it was almost cruel to know that food could smell so delicious.  
  
It was a moot point considering Kurogane hadn’t given him any coin to spend- which Fai supposed was  _technically_  fair, considering it was his companions’ coin in the first place and not actually his own, but acknowledging it didn’t ease the ache in his belly.  
  
“Oh, even an apple would be good...” he mumbled, trying not to stare –and failing miserably- as he moved past a stall liberally adorned with piles of shiny-skinned fruit; apples, gleaming red and green and each the size of his two fists put together, mounted the sloped display in a pyramid of almost-perfect spheres. Stars didn’t  _need_  to eat, but apparently no-one had told Fai’s stomach that, and the sight was tempting enough to make his mouth water.  
  
“You hungry, boy?”  
  
Fai blinked as he caught the eye of the stall-owner, a tanned woman whose pale hair streamed down her back in a high ponytail and whose bared arms rippled with lean muscle. “Excuse me?”  
  
She winked at him, leaning against the poles of her stall with a wide smile pulling at the corners of her generous mouth. “Seems to me, a pretty young thing like you could do with some fresh fruit... and it just so happens I sell the best apples in the market. A copper a piece, three for two- can’t get a better deal than that.”  
  
Pretty young thing? Chances were Fai was several centuries older than her at the very least... though the compliment certainly was flattering, he couldn’t deny that. Fai smiled gently, waving his hand in polite dismissal. “I’m sorry, I’ve no money, so...”  
  
Smoky-dark eyes sharpened speculatively. “Well, I can’t let you wander about hungry, boy. I can hear your stomach growling from here. Tell you what,” she added, leaning conspiratorially forwards over the stall, “I’ll give you three- no,  _five_  apples for a lock of your hair. Just a small one, mind- I ain’t greedy.” She grinned, her teeth like rows of freshwater pearls. “That’s a better deal than you’ll get elsewhere with an empty purse, and I don’t mind giving you that advice for free.”  
  
Fai blinked again. “My...  _hair_?” Finding the tail of the long braid that trailed down his back, he brushed his fingers over its soft tip thoughtfully. “What in the heavens for?”  
  
“Welllll,” drawled the woman, her eyes taking on a greedy spark in spite of her assurances to the contrary, “all I need to do is burn a few strands and I’ll have me a pinch of stardust- for that’s what you are, boy, aren’t ya? A star fallen far from home.” Her mouth pursed a little, the expression unpleasant. “ _Very_  far from home, if you ended up here.”  
  
Fai swallowed, a hot lump in his throat making it hard to do so, and it wasn’t until he realised the coppery, stinging taste on his tongue was blood that he in turn realised that anger had overtaken shock. “I’m not hungry anymore,” he hissed, and was only half-startled at the venom in his voice; he’d been angry like this before, when the demons had come and attacked that village- and just like then his skin itched with the need to  _burn_. The woman started, taken aback by the light that flickered beneath his skin- but the glow was weak, more smoke than actual flame, and she was not as frightened as she could have – _should_  have- been.  
  
She backed off, palms raised in supplication- but the look in her eye was no match for her placating words. “Easy, boy- I meant no offense. And anyways, you set yourself alight in this market and you’ll earn more than my offer of trade; any number of souls here would cut off their arm for a chance at one such as you.”  
  
The heat in Fai’s bones died down to embers, a smouldering ache inside that twined with the hunger and made his belly feel emptier than before. She was right, as much as he loathed to admit it- even if hers had been the first offer, it wouldn’t be the last, and with the light inside him burning so low it wasn’t something he could risk. If Kurogane had been at his side, it might have been a different matter –and how strange that he should rely so quickly on a companion that might not even be his at the end of the day- few indeed would have the spine to argue with a sword as big as that two-handed blade, let alone the man wielding it... but Fai was on his own and unwilling to take chances.   
  
“Thank you for your offer, but I decline,” said Fai crisply, forcing a smile onto his face; there was nothing warm in the cool curve of his lips and that was exactly how he intended it. “I believe I will take my business elsewhere.”  
  
He stalked off before she had a chance to argue, but even if she had said something he doubted he would have heard it; the blood pounding in his ears made it hard to think past the sound of his own roaring heartbeat. The cobblestones beneath his feet blurred as he walked, his steps too quick to be entirely composed- but Fai couldn’t temper the urgent need to get  _away_ , to get out of this place, and it wasn’t long at all before he was lost in the crowd once more. He didn’t know where he was going, but it didn’t really matter- anywhere was better than this.  
  
It took a long time for his breathing to calm, for his heart to grow steady beneath the palm he pressed flat against his own chest, and though he’d only been in this body a few days it was strange to think how familiar the act was. It didn’t matter, because he would be leaving it as soon as he found a way to go home; as comfortable as Fai found himself in this body now -this human shape he had assumed upon falling into the human world- it was still something he would gladly leave behind to be by Yuui’s side once more.  
  
Like all of the things he had found in this world. Like Kurogane.  
  
Fai paused mid-step, the thought stabbing quick and needle-sharp; his breath -such a human thing, to breathe- stuttered in his chest a little, coming tight and almost painful.  _Oh. I have to leave him._  It wasn’t... it wasn’t something he was ready to think about yet, not with the way his heart raced in his chest, not with the blind panic that filtered through his thoughts. It was something he wouldn’t think about at all if given the chance.  
 _  
But you don’t have a choice, do you? Because if there is a way the witch will know it, and you will ask for it and she will tell you, and then the leaving part will rush up on you sooner than you can bear it. If you’re not going to think about it now, then when?_  
  
“I don’t know,” muttered Fai out loud, walking again; if his steps weren’t fast they weren’t slow either, and even as the words unspooled across his thoughts he’d somehow found his way to the bottom of the hill the markets were built on, the world passing by his eyes unseen, his gaze turned inward. “Just not now.”  
  
He kept his head down, after that; his thoughts stripped purposefully blank and his jaw set. The crowd passed him by in dribs and drabs, some staring, some not- but Fai no more felt their eyes upon him than he heard their words, the conversation around him a meaningless surf of noise that ebbed and flowed as he walked down winding streets. “Not now,” said Fai again, speaking to no-one, and then stopped; he’d reached the end of the road.  
  
If he’d expected to end up anywhere in particular, Fai might have been surprised to find himself standing on the seashore- but as it was the tang of salt had been heavy in the air even as he left the markets; he hadn’t noticed it, not really, too lost in his thoughts- but if there was thing he was coming to understand it was that all the twisting paths that wove through Spirit seemed to lead directly to the sea.  
  
He took a deep breath as he stepped off cobblestones and onto the beach, toes curling in his boots; with them on his feet he couldn’t exactly scrunch them into the sand like his instincts suggested, this human body once more surprising him with its desires, but the thought itself was a calming one, and the sea-spray that fanned his face and leant a salty savour to every breath went a long way to soothing his jagged edges. He sighed, the exhalation as slow as he could manage, and the tension stringing his shoulders seemed to fade away as he tipped his face towards the sky.  
  
It was daytime, so he couldn’t have seen Yuui, even if the rolling, distant clouds on the horizon had been absent- but Fai knew he was there all the same. _I’m trying, Yuui. I’m trying- I’ll find my way home somehow.  
  
I have to._  
  
He wasn’t alone on the beach; fishermen were dragging heavy nets full of fish up onto the sand by the wharves, their scales glittering like quicksilver under the fading sunlight, and there were scattered groups of people that dotted the shore -some watching the boats, some wading through the foamy shallows, a few more wandering hand in hand where the water crested up onto the sand- all along the long expanse of drifting sand. But all of them, regardless of their activities, were moving away from where the sun was setting and the thunderheads gathering in inky plumes across that blue expanse of sky; away from the distant, stony cliffs that shielded an isolated bay, its arcing shoreline directly below the swelling clouds.  
  
Without even knowing why, Fai started walking towards it.

* * *

He had to admit, it was a beautiful garden; wild and lush and the very opposite of every courtly terrace he’d ever seen, a tangle of greenery and herbs and late-blooming flowers, their dreamy scent thick on the back of his tongue as he breathed. It wasn’t why he was here, though, and when he said as much Tomoyo only giggled.  
  
“Of course it isn’t- but just because you are looking for one thing doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate what else you find along the way, Kurogane.” She finally took a seat on a low bench in the centre of the garden, brushing leaves and petals from its surface; the heavy heads of flowers bobbed and swayed by her dainty feet, her little toes wiggling in the grass as she sighed in pleasure. Kurogane merely scowled down at her, unimpressed by the splendour of his surroundings. Wise sayings or not, she still wasn’t telling him what he wanted to hear.  
  
Maybe some of his impatience was getting through though, because Tomoyo tutted in disapproval. “Oh, do sit down- I’m not going to bite you, and I promise you nothing in my garden can do you any harm. Well,” she added thoughtfully, “at least not as long as you don’t go eating my flowers.” She patted the bench beside her, and seeing that his only other option was to stand there glowering uselessly, Kurogane sat.   
  
“Look, witch,” he started, once he’d made himself as comfortable as he was going to get on the stone bench top. “I’m not here to talk about home and garden. I need  _answers_ -”  
  
“-and you can’t go home until you get them. Of course.” Tomoyo smiled up at him, the expression sweetly infuriating, and laced her hands together in her lap. “But I suppose that depends on what questions you want to ask.”  
  
Kurogane sighed, the sound a long rush of air between his teeth. “You know I’m cursed.”  
  
“Of course. One only need look to see  _that_.” The bright and sunny smile she gave him faded a little, tempered by the evening light just beginning to fade around the corners of her garden. “Anyone with magic can see it written on your skin, hidden in your bones- there’s something dark inside you that shouldn’t be there at all, a shadow that should have slain you outright. How on earth did you survive with so much demon blood spilt over you?” she asked quietly, and the sadness in her voice made Kurogane feel itchy all over.  
  
“You’re the witch,” he grumbled. “Aren’t you supposed to know these things?” The way she was looking at him now smacked too close to pity, and he wouldn’t accept that from anyone.  
  
Tomoyo looked at him a long moment, tipping her head gently to one side; a heavy lock of her hair slid over her shoulder to tumble over the front of her dress, the bells woven through the strands jingling softly on the ends of their ribbons. “Perhaps. But being a witch does not mean I know  _everything_ , Kurogane,” she murmured quietly, the seriousness of her words making his heart sink in his chest-  
  
-but before he could open his mouth to say anything at all, she spoke again. “Not everything, no. But I do know how this curse of yours can be lifted, even if I myself cannot be the one to do so. For all the magic I possess this is not something that  _I_  can lift from you- which is not to say that another cannot do what I cannot.”  
  
What she was saying made almost no sense whatsoever, and when combined with the sudden seesawing of his hopes rising once more, it made Kurogane feel almost ill. “Stop playing word games and just tell me already,” he muttered, doing his best to stop the growl in his chest before it could do more than colour his voice with irritation; his hands curled atop his knees, fisting tight handfuls of his breeches. “I walked a long way to get here and I’ve been through a lot- I’m in no mood to put up with this.”  
  
Tomoyo smiled sadly, reaching across to place her small hand atop his own. “I know and I am sorry- you must have been scared, and with good reason.”  
  
“I wasn’t scared!” Kurogane snapped. “I’m just pissed because I spent three days marching through the forest to get here, got attacked by demons twice on my way- and don’t even get me started on  _Fai_.”  
  
The witch’s smile turned gentle as she patted his knuckles, but the gleam in her eye was in no way mocking and before long his hackles fell. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Kurogane,” she assured him, and continued on before he could say anything. “Perhaps you weren’t scared, but I daresay you weren’t happy, either. And I do believe that both times it was  _you_  who sought the demons out, not the other way around- you could have left that village to fall just as surely as you could have left Fai on his own to face the demons that followed him, and yet you did neither. You’re a better man than you think you are, Kurogane.”  
  
He didn’t ask how she knew about the village, if only because most of him was struggling to think of a spluttering rebuttal and finding it all but impossible. It was one thing to do something you knew as right; it was another entirely to be told so by someone who looked young enough to be the little sister you never had and who somehow smiled at you like the mother you lost. “Just tell me how I get myself free of this curse,” he said finally, the words thick in his mouth; it wasn’t quite a plea, but it was cutting it close.  
  
Tomoyo straightened in her seat, lifting her hand away from him and folding it in her lap besides its partner once more, and before his eyes her face changed, some unearthly veil settling over her serene features to chase the light of mischief from her eyes and leave wisdom in its place. “The cure is simple,” said Tomoyo, and as she spoke her voice became the voice of the Witch of the Moon, sorrowful and soft. “To clear yourself of the demonic stigma that has cursed you with a demon’s rage, you need the heart of a star to burn the black blood from your veins and cleanse you of its influence.”  
  
Kurogane stared, unable to speak.  
  
“It’s really rather fortunate that you found Fai, actually,” she continued calmly, and the gaze she turned on him was far older than any he had ever seen. “His heart should serve you perfectly. Starfire is the purest and cleanest flame one can find, the scourge of demons in all their forms... and while the heart of a fallen star is wounded by its very nature, I dare say that a few more days spent in your presence will do much to bring him back to his former radiance. After all, compared to the state he was when you found him -lost and alone, confused and afraid, condemned to look forever upon the vault of heaven he had been cast from- he’s come so far already. Just being by your side should help him heal, with all the care you’ve given him.”  
  
“I  _can’t_ ,” blurted Kurogane. “I wasn’t- I didn’t help him because I wanted him to help me, I helped him because he needed it!” And he really did feel ill now, some twisting ache churning inside him, echoed by a dull horror that made his head hurt to even think of what she was suggesting. “That’s his  _heart_ you’re talking about- I can’t just take it from him!”  
  
“But what if he were to gift it to you?” said the Witch of the Moon, and the depths of her eyes were unfathomable and dark. “Would you refuse him then?”  
  
“ _Yes!_ ” Kurogane surged to his feet, the sick wash of nausea roiling in his gut burnt up entirely by the hot flash of anger that swept through him, and the words poured from his lips in a torrent. “That idiot doesn’t know anything about  _anything_ \- he can’t be trusted to make a decision like that! All that fool knows is that someone is waiting for him, and he needs to go home to be with them- and he can’t do that without his goddamn  _heart_ -” Kurogane paused, too angry to even speak, and it was a long minute before he could untangle his thoughts enough to speak again. “I’ve changed my mind,” he said slowly, heart hammering in his ears; he pronounced each word with deliberate care. “I don’t care about my curse anymore. Tell me how I can send Fai home.”  
 _  
Before he finds out what you told me. Before he tries to give me something that I don’t deserve and he can never take back._  
  
The Witch looked at him for a long, slow moment, reading his thoughts as though they were written on his face. “It is not an easy thing to do, Kurogane,” she murmured. “You must understand what you are giving up. If Fai’s heart is not yours, then you will never be free of the shadows that plague you. You will never return to Clow. You will never find peace in another’s presence, or rest in the arms of a lover. You will wander the world, alone, lost to the rage inside you, all your thoughts driven from you but for the need to slay the demons that made you so- and you will never find them.” She closed her eyes.  
  
“Then so be it,” said Kurogane roughly. It might have been a choice, but it was an easy one to make- he would not steal another’s happiness to find his own. “Tell me what I need to do.”  
  
The Witch opened her eyes, and once more it was Tomoyo that faced him. “To return a star to where it has fallen from, you need to first destroy what pulled it down and then make safe the way for a path to be blazed skywards once more. Fai did not fall by accident, Kurogane; it was dark magic that drew him down to earth, the same black art that summoned the demons responsible for the destruction of Nihon- and within it, the village of Suwa.” Her face was sad, her mask gone, and she looked younger than he had ever seen her. “If you travel to the mountains, two days east of here, you will find the core of this magic, in the lair of the demons that have hurt so many. Destroy them, down to the last shadow, and you will see a star rise to heaven once more.”  
  
Kurogane nodded sharply. “Fine. If that’s what I have to do, then that’s what I have to do.” It would not be easy; if the mountains were where the demons had their lair, there would be many of them, far too many for him to take on by himself; he’d need help from Fai for sure. But if this was what it took to get the star home where he needed to be, then Kurogane was going to do it, no matter what it took. A thought struck him then, enough to furrow his brow and fix the witch with a stern look.  
  
“We’re going to need magic, aren’t we?”  
  
Tomoyo blinked at him, eyelashes fluttering. “Oh? Well, yes, that’s true- no star can ascend with their strength ebbed so low. I didn’t expect you to pick up on that,” she added, and Kurogane frowned, a little stung by the genuine surprise in her voice.  
  
“Hey. I may not know much about magic but I’m not an idiot. And don’t laugh at me,” he added, frustrated as she started to giggle.  
  
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Kurogane.” She was still giggling when she said it, so he couldn’t take her entirely serious, but soon enough her laughter quieted and only the spark of mischief in her eyes remained. “Yes, you will need magic beyond what Fai has at this current moment in time; it will be necessary for him to remaster the starfire that burns bright at his core, which he has not had control of since the moment he fell.”  
  
“So I was right,” muttered Kurogane under his breath. “The idiot  _did_  scramble his brains when he fell.”  
  
“Something like that,” said Tomoyo cheerfully. “Which is another thing to thank you for- if you did not happen upon him while he lay so weak and vulnerable, why, it’s entirely possible that your shining friend would have met a cruel ending at the hands of poachers. Stardust is very valuable, Kurogane, and with Fai’s defences so low, it would not surprise me at all if he were to have been caught by someone who meant him harm. It is a very good thing indeed that the first human soul he met was  _you_.”  
  
In spite of the knowledge that she was probably,  _definitely_  doing it on purpose -the little brat- Kurogane still flushed in the face of her beaming smile, a slow rise of heat up the back of his neck that made his face hot and his ears no-doubt bright red. “Whatever,” he grunted, forcibly resisting the urge to rub at the nape of his neck, no matter how hot it felt; he couldn’t do much about the colour high in his face except for ignore it and hope she chose to do that same. Which, of course, she didn’t.  
  
“You’re simply adorable when you blush, did you know that? It’s wonderful to see,” laughed Tomoyo, clapping her hands together; the bells in her hair chimed again, the sound almost as bright as her laughter- and since the only counter Kurogane could come up with made him sound like he was five goddamn years old, he said nothing, determined to keep his scowl in the face of that obvious happiness. Seeing as she was a witch and all, The Witch of Moon in fact, with people coming from far and wide to seek her advice, Tomoyo probably didn’t get much of a chance to smile like that; and even if she _was_  a witch, she was  _young_  and he wasn’t enough of a bastard that he’d deny her the chance to make fun of him if it made her so happy.  
  
It didn’t mean he was going to sit here and take it, though, so Kurogane cleared his throat awkwardly -and  _ignored_  the smile twitching at his lips; he was not smiling over this, no way, no how- and coughed to get her attention. “I think you need to talk to Fai- he’s got questions he wants to ask, too,” he said gruffly.  
  
Tomoyo nodded demurely, the soft fall of her hair sliding briefly over her face- but her eyes were bright when she looked back up at him again. “I expect so, which means you had best take me back to the parlour where you found me so that I may wait for him. Of course,” she added, and Kurogane immediately felt a rush of worry at the cheer in her words when she said that, “you’ll probably have to find him first.”  
  
Something cold dropped into Kurogane’s belly, heavy like a stone. “What do you mean,  _find him_?”  
  
This time, Tomoyo’s smile was comparable to the last bright rays of sunlight cresting the high walls of her garden as the day turned inexorably on towards evening. “You didn’t think he’d be exactly where you left him, did you?” Kurogane’s speechlessness in the face of her laughter was sign enough that yes, he had thought just that, and now the slight worry he’d felt curling in his belly before was sliding downwards into rising dread.   
  
“I’d hurry, if I were you,” added Tomoyo helpfully, rising to her feet and dusting leaves from the trailing skirts of her gown as she drew closer; one little hand curled daintily about his elbow, tugging a bit to pull him into a better stance to escort her back inside. “It’ll be evening soon, and I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that Fai glows ever so slightly brighter when the sun goes down- and in a market like Spirit, you won’t have been the only one to, either. You’d best take me to the parlour and get a move on, Kurogane.”  
  
Kurogane cursed, but under his breath; there was a lady present, even if she was a witch. He had to get out the gates- who  _knew_  what trouble Fai could have gotten himself into without Kurogane there to intercede? Fai was a man grown, yes, and more than capable of burning a horde of demons to smouldering ashes, but two days ago he hadn’t known how to put boots on, let alone lace his breeches; there was no telling what mischief he’d find himself in the thick of.   
  


* * *

The sand within the sheltered lee of the cove was much the same as the sand of the beach at large -pale and wet, soft and crumbly, crunching beneath his boots- but it had its differences all the same, and as Fai made his way through the natural gateway carved by time and seawater into the stone cliffs that guarded it, these differences became remarkably obvious. For a start, there was the small matter of the vast quantities of driftwood scattered by the waterline, wood worn and bleached a salty grey, and the fact that apart from himself, there were only two other souls here, the both of them beside some strange apparatus-  
  
-but what  _really_  sold Fai on the strangeness of the sight before him were the copper rods peppering the shoreline like gleaming metal branches strewn by some wild storm. Some pointed directly skywards, forked and vibrating with some arcane force; others lay at peculiar angles, scattered in what was surely some grand design, though not one Fai could pick out by mere sight of it alone- and each and every one had wires connecting it to its fellows in some strange and delicate web of metal that glittered in the salty spray from the ocean. And as Fai walked closer, his curiosity getting the better of him for not the first time since he had arrived on this earthly plane -and probably not the last, either- they all started to hum. Drawing near the closest rod, one that sparked at the tip of each coppery protrusion, he crouched down and reached out curious fingers to still its trembling vibrations-  
  
-and was promptly knocked flat on his behind from the sheer force of the shout that came echoing over the beach.  
 _  
“Hey, you! Do you want to get struck by lightning?!”_  
  
Fai blinked, the echoes of seawater from the tide soaking through the seat of his breeches as he sat sprawled on the damp sand, his legs stretched out before him. “Eh?”  
  
The two figures -both men, he could see that now- were headed towards him with considerable speed- well,  _one_  was at least, arms waving about as he ran, his companion following along behind at a much more leisurely pace. Slender legs wrapped in leather boots that reached well up to mid-thigh pounded across the sand, their multitudes of buckles patterning the air with clicking noises, and the leather coat the young man wore flapped about as he ran, spreading behind him like the wings of a bird- assuming the bird in question was both ungainly and possessed of a poor temper.  
  
“Are you mad or just  _simple_?” he barked in Fai’s direction. The man was still running, barely in earshot, but it didn’t stop him; his voice was certainly loud enough to startle a flock of seabirds from the shallows, setting them to flight. “If you want to end up sparking right up to your eyeballs, go on ahead- grab the shiny metal things! Honestly!”  
  
It was all Fai could do to rise himself up onto his knees, dusting the sand from the backs of his legs and grimacing at the wet sensation that had soaked through his breeches as he did so. “I’m sorry, are these yours? I didn’t mean to disturb your... whatever it is that you’re doing here.”  
  
The man was standing above him now, thin face creased as he looked down his upturned nose at Fai; mismatched eyes, both blue in differing shades, narrowed angrily behind thin-wired eyeglasses with round lenses, and dark hair flopped messily over his forehead. “Before you ask, it’s not an experiment. You see those clouds over there?” One thin hand gestured towards the ocean, where dark cloudbanks gathered in ominous rolls that moved steadily across the horizon and towards the very beach they stood on. “That’s the storm I’m calling down. You touch any of these metal rods and you’ll quickly find yourself fried to a crispy golden finish. What kind of idiot goes and pokes at a complicated magical array like this one without even knowing what it is?”  
  
“I’m not an  _idiot_ , I’m  _lost_ ,” corrected Fai crisply, rising to his feet; drawing himself to his full height, he stood easily head and shoulders above the slender figure harassing him- but the finger that waggled in his face was apparently unconcerned with this fact, dipping down to jab at his chest.  
  
“Well, whatever you are,” came the snappish response, “you’re clearly in need of help. I can’t have you just wandering about and toying with our set-up- it took me hours to get all those rods in place!”  
  
“You mean it took  _me_  hours to get those rods in place,” drawled a lazy voice; the second man Fai had seen had finally caught up with his high-strung companion and now stood nearby, hands on hips as he eyed them both with a hooded gaze. “As I recall, you stood on the beach barking orders at me and waving your arms around like a madman. And don’t just go poking strangers, either- you don’t know where they’ve been and you could be sticking your fingers in something nasty. No offence,” he added, looking up at Fai; the eyes that met his own were golden and sharp, only the heaviness of the eyelids that hid them tempering their cutting edge as they fell across his face.  
  
“None taken,” said Fai mildly. It was true; these two people could have no idea where he’d come from and how far he’d fallen. They probably didn’t even know he wasn’t human.  
  
“Still,” he continued, “it’s a strange thing indeed to find a fallen star washed up on the beach. Where did you come from? Did you fall far from here, or did you just wander on over to have a look at the markets?”  
  
Fai started, and violently at that; he jerked away with a gasp, immediately falling back and away from the slender finger poking him in the chest as the skinnier of the two men confronting him stared with jaw dropped, his hands rising of their own accord to hover before him. Light flickered over his skin, a warming glow that tingled in his fingertips and lit them up like candles; it wasn’t flame and wouldn’t do much damage, but it spoke enough of his true nature to betray him to the men that watched him. “How did you know?” he hissed, on edge and wary- it would be just his luck to wander into another few like the woman at the markets, and this time there were no crowds to witness.  
  
The sharp-eyed one blinked, affecting an expression of lazy shock- but it didn’t match what Fai saw in hooded eyes and he didn’t let his guard down even as big hands wrapped in fingerless gloves came up in a placating gesture. “Relax. We’re not poachers of any kind; you just surprised me, that’s all.”  
  
“You’re a  _star_?” The skinny one gaped at him, turning to stare at his companion- and then  _thwapped_  him on the arm with an open-palmed slap. “Hey! If you knew he was a star in the first place, you should have told me! I could have burnt my fingers poking him like that, and then who would cook your dinner? Not  _you_ , that’s for sure!” As though realising what he’d just said, he flushed, and the face he turned back to Fai was bright pink. “Forget you heard that,” he muttered, eyebrows twitching. “And I’m sorry I poked you. Please don’t set me on fire, I meant no harm.” He dropped into an awkward bow, leaving Fai to stare over his back at his companion.  
  
“Watanuki has a complex about offending people,” came the eventual explanation. “Except for me, apparently. Don’t mind him. He’ll stop bowing and scraping in a bit.”  
  
“Shut up, Doumeki, or I swear to all the gods there are you will never eat my cooking again,” hissed the one named Watanuki, raising his head enough for Fai to see the thunderclouds gathering over his face, much like the ones rolling in quite quickly now from across the sea. Doumeki, if that was his name, just grabbed a thin arm and hauled him upright.  
  
“Whatever. Look, the storm’s almost here- we don’t have time to waste.”  
  
Watanuki’s eyes widened. “Ah,  _hell_  in a  _handbasket_ -! I have to get back to the rig!” He jerked himself free of Doumeki’s grip and was off running back over the sand again before Fai could even open his mouth, and the look he shot Doumeki in response as the other man shrugged had to be questioning.  
  
“We’re trapping the lightning,” said Doumeki mildly. “That’s what the rods and wires are for. You can stay and watch if you like- Watanuki won’t even notice, not now he’s this excited. He’s too highly strung for his own good sometimes,” he muttered, “but he’s the best stormcaller there ever has been.” Doumeki narrowed his eyes at Fai, then, reducing them almost to slits; the weight where they fell on his face was almost as heavy as Kurogane’s own gaze, and Fai shivered in spite of himself. “It’ll probably do you good,” said Doumeki slowly, already turning to walk back over the sand and towards the strange metal apparatus whose levels and cranks his companion was working frantically, “considering you’re so burnt out.”  
  
It took Fai a full three seconds to start moving after being hit in the face with that statement, but even once he had he couldn’t think of the words to even ask how or what the other man had meant- and by then the storm was coming, and there really  _was_  nothing Fai could say at the sight of the clouds pouring across the sky in drunken spools of darkness as he hurried to catch up.  
  
The thunderhead came first, blotting out the last rays of sunlight and spilling a shadow across the cove; it was deep and dark and cold where it poured across them, and in its shade the copper roads sparkled, their nets spangled with crackling, spitting light. Watanuki was cranking at a large wheel on the side of his contraption, the machine itself almost as large as any of the stands Fai had seen in the markets, and as he spun it static built in the air, his hair starting to lift from his scalp and the buckles on his boots sparking.  
  
Thunder rumbled, low and quiet but building with every passing heartbeat. Fai heard it in his ears, felt it in his chest, his bones; it rattled his ribs and echoed in his head, and it wasn’t long before every breath tasted like ozone, sharp and sweet and tingling on his tongue. “Oh,” he said softly; the sound slipped out before he could stop it, and when he held his hands out in front of him, he could feel the fine hair on his arms standing straight.  
  
“Storm’s here,” murmured Doumeki. Watanuki apparently thought that observation was completely unnecessary, judging by the scathing look he sent his companion; if he’d glanced at a cup of water with those same eyes, it would have started to boil.  
  
“I  _know_. Don’t just stand there, you oaf,” he panted, leaning heavily on the wheel he was cranking; sweat dampened his hair, leaving strands of it clinging to his forehead even as the rest was lifted about his head in a dark halo of static, and the colour of his eyes was electric. “Get over there and start flicking switches, would you?”  
  
Fai watched in fascination as they worked, Doumeki grunting with good humour and making his way to the side of the machine that was apparently his with an ease that suggested he’d done it before, stepping easily over long snaking cables that flowed in ribbons across the wet sand, each one plunging a copper fork deep into the surface of the beach. Those big, gloved hands started pulling at levers and flicking knobs and switches as commanded, and the protruding antennae on top of the device -each one larger than Fai was tall, whip-thin and swaying in the breeze that had kicked up- vibrating urgently in much the same way as the copper rods now did, their branching tines shooting sparks that soared skywards in drifting bursts of energy.  
  
Above them, thunder rolled, clouds lit from within by bands of roiling light. Deep in Fai’s chest, something hummed with a companionable resonance; this magic was not the same as the flame that burnt in his breast, but it was a close cousin- he could not help but feel the closeness of the energies that painted the sky to the light that sparked in his bones, and the sheer presence alone was enough to set his skin aglow. It was hard to keep his head when heat flooded his flesh, pouring down his limbs and warming him to the core with an ease he had not felt since being grounded here; it was hard to keep his heart beating steady as his chest heaved and the clouds roiled, the motion of one a mirror for the other-  
  
-so Fai didn’t even try.  
  
His breath was a living thing that coiled in his chest, hissing in and out of his lungs; it left his lips as vapour, the very air about them all hung heavy with salt and the promise of rain, and when Watanuki gave his wheel a final, triumphant spin -the shout of victory that left his mouth barely heard over the drumming of the stormclouds- the sky above them split open with a cracking  _ **thoooooom--!!**_  
  
Lightning boiled across the clouds in flashing streaks, leaving blistering afterimages burnt across the eye, and the snake of Fai’s breath caught between his teeth as it poured downwards in a liquid flow of electricity, leaving the wisps of his hair that had escaped the captivity of his braid to stand on end when the first brilliant forks speared into the net of wires staked across the beach. The sand  _exploded_ , great gouts of it pulled into the sky, and yet more of it was reduced to molten, glassy slag at the impact zone- but the rods were still in place, their wires humming, and glittering energy simmered across their fine strands and raced up the thick cables that led to the machine in crackling bursts.  
  
“The jars!” shouted Watanuki, barely heard above the cacophony; when Doumeki handed him huge glass containers with big copper plugs, he jammed them into sockets that Fai hadn’t before noticed, and inside the spheres of cloudy glass thick lines of energy tumbled into being, pearlescent and glowing with power as they spun. Flossy threads coalesced into sparkling masses as bolt after bolt rained down on the beach; the rods were all but singing, glowing white hot as the carpet of clouds above them poured lightning into their waiting, wiry net, and the ache in Fai’s chest doubled over with each successive spike of electricity.  
  
He gasped, one hand coming to clutch at his shirt; beneath his palm his heart beat a quick-time tattoo, and the pounding of it fed the glow that snaked through his limbs and lit him up beneath his clothes. He was  _hurting_ , now, some pain inside him that he couldn’t begin to understand, an emptiness that was too much to bear; he needed something, needed it  _now_ , and as the tightness that squeezed his heart burned hot and fierce he suddenly knew what he had to do.  
  
Between one breath and the next, he was already running across the sand and into the web of sparking wire mapped across the shoreline.  
  
Watanuki shouted, but Fai couldn’t hear him, too lost to the pounding in his head; every inch of him was glowing as he raced for that cracking net, and when he reached it he leapt for its sparking centre, hitting the wires in the exact moment another bolt came screaming downwards.  
  
When the lightning hit, heat poured through him in a blistering rush that set his clothes to smoking, and Fai’s boots exploded in scraps of scorched leather as he jerked like a ragdoll tossed on the waves; the smouldering sparks that rushed over his skin in a brilliant fall kindled the embers inside, and the world drowned in blue and white as flames licked down his body in a cracking  _whoomph_  as Fai went up like a torch. He shivered uncontrollably, his eyes rolling back in his head; the sand beneath his toes steamed salt and vapour as bolt after bolt came crashing down, each successive hit casting sparks that crashed over the net and flared like galaxies in the darkness behind his fluttering eyelids.  
  
There was no sound, only the taste of ozone burning on his breath. His lips tingled, teeth sparking as he breathed in the storm, and the fire that scorched inside him pulsed like a supernova with each inhale. Fai was burning now, too far gone to stop; his thoughts slowed and spun as pinpricks of light inside his skull as the lightning worked through him in great flashes of energy, and it seemed like an eternity was held suspended between each beat of his racing heart.  
 _  
“It’s too much! He’ll die\- you have to turn it off! Let- let me go! I have to-! Shizuka, no!”  
  
“Leave him! If you break the circuit now, the shock could kill him- let the storm blow out first and we can pick up the pieces afterwards!”_  
  
Voices carried on the wind whipped about his ears; his hair spun wildly about his head, pulled from his braid in crackling strands and floating in the heat of the flames that raced over his skin- but Fai could take no meaning from what he heard, every cell inside his body sparking and alive as the long-dormant starfire inside him blazed into life once more. All knowing was lost, his existence boiling down to this endless moment of heat and rebirth- but the power only lasted as long as the lightning did, so when the final bolt drained free of his burning body -leaving him empty and shaking but for the fire that burned anew within his breast- there was nothing he could do to stop his senses fading into darkness as they left him and the earth itself rose up to meet him.  
  


* * *

Brat that she was proving herself to be, Kurogane was fairly sure Tomoyo had given him the run-around when it came to escorting her back to the parlour; the path they took was not the one he remembered from the journey to the garden, and no doorway they passed was one he had seen twice. All-knowing Witch of the Moon or not, there was no denying she was definitely a child, and taking more than merely pleasure in his frustrated growling as she and her giggles wove a path for them both through the mess of halls and doors.  
  
“I have no time for this,” he snapped, and only the fact that the girl was far too young to feel the full force of his temper kept his voice from a shout.  
  
“Ah,” said Tomoyo sagely, and the twinkle in her eye surely outdid the glittering tapestries that outline the dark walls, “but the faster you run, Kurogane, the longer it will take to reach your destination. It’s all about trust,” she added, at his perplexed look. “Trust that you are, at this moment, exactly where you need to be.”  
  
Kurogane snorted impatiently. “Tch. Where I need to be is  _beside Fai_ , and sure as hell that’s not here.” The words tumbled out before he’d even fully thought them, but he wouldn’t take them back; they were true for all they were hurried, and he couldn’t lie, not to himself- even if he wasn’t quite ready to grasp the enormity that dwelled in the shadows of what he’d just spoken.  
  
Tomoyo beamed. “Of course! Well, then I see no need to linger here-” and there was  _no way_  she should have been able to pull him sideways so firmly, darting them both between the curtains of a doorway that had appeared  _literally out of nowhere-_  
  
-but she did and she had and before Kurogane could clear the moon-dazzle from his eyes, he was standing in the open archway of the parlour once more, with Tomoyo smiling up at him like he’d done something particularly clever. “Go on,” she said happily. “Door’s that way.” The fall of her hand was gentle and he turned to follow it before he even knew what he was doing, pulling himself up short before three steps had even been taken.  
  
“He needs to talk to you too, you know,” he said brusquely.  
  
“That I do know,” she giggled. “But before that  _you_  need to find him first- it shouldn’t be too hard, though. I think Fai’s someone you could search out with your eyes closed.”  
  
Kurogane wasn’t going to stand here and be laughed at, no matter how true the witch’s words, so he wasn’t at all gentle with his footsteps as he stomped away, storming for the entrance with his bad mood following him along behind and a scowl on his face as he grabbed for the handle. Spirit was a huge city, he’d seen that much within a few moments of arriving, and it was full of people; searching for the witch herself had proven it wasn’t like he was going to be able to just open the door and come face to face with the one he was looking for-  
 _  
Oh._  
  
Across the courtyard, there limped a star, fair-haired and pale and glowing like a watchfire as he stood suspended between the shoulders of two men; his blue eyes were dazed and bright and  _burning_ , unstoppable as they fell to Kurogane’s face, and in his chest his breath caught and held as that gaze sought his own.  
  
A long moment passed in the thudding of his heart, so furious with worry it was all but pounding- and then Kurogane was hurrying across the courtyard as quickly as he could manage, unable to stop until he was barely an arm’s length from the star that stood unsteady before him. “You idiot! Where the hell were you?!”  
  
Fai –bare feet caked with sand, hair dishevelled and frazzled as it fell from its braid, fair skin blackened with the ashes of his half-burnt and tattered shirt, chest bare and exposed through the scraps of his clothes- looked up at him with a bright smile, swaying ever so slightly on his feet. “Hm? Oh, I was tired of waiting for Kuro-takes-his-time so I went for a walk. I travelled the markets, journeyed to the beach- I even met and made some new friends!”  
  
“And got struck by lightning,” said one of these ‘new friends’, the straight-faced one with the stubborn jaw and the heavy-lidded eyes.  
  
“And got struck by lightning, yes,” agreed Fai amicably, nodding a bit too enthusiastically. His hair was shining, stray wisps of it floating around his head in a drifting halo. “But ultimately I think it was a good thing, at least once we put the fire out. And I may have ruined my shirt and exploded a few jars, but I feel so... energised!” There was a manic spark glowing in his gaze, tiny pinpricks of light racing under his skin as though a crowd of stars flickered there, and while it was anything but steady it was  _bright_. “I haven’t felt like this in a long time,” confessed Fai, and Kurogane noticed for the first time how widely his pupils were dilated, how fast his breathing sped as his words tumbled from his lips. “It feels really good, like I could just light up- but I won’t you know, I  _can’t_ , and even if I could I’ve got no control; if I even  _think_  about it too hard I’ll just go up like a torch,  _whoosh_.”  
  
“Whoosh,” repeated Kurogane flatly.  
  
“Whoosh!” giggled Fai, throwing his arms in the air.   
  
The other of his so-called friends, the skinny one with the snooty nose and the mismatched eyes sighed, tugging gently on Fai’s elbow and pulling his arm down by his side. “He’s a little power-drunk,” he explained in exasperation. “And I can’t say I’m not surprised, either- most creatures would  _die_  if they took in that much of a charge, but your friend here drank it down like he was dying of thirst.” He gave Fai a little half-shove in Kurogane’s direction; without thinking he brought up his hands to catch the star as he stumbled, grabbing onto his shoulders to hold him steady. Static shock raced over Kurogane’s skin where his palms came into contact with Fai’s trembling body, raising the hair on his arms and pricking him with goosebumps. “With that much magic in his system, he’s going to be a little loopy for a while... at least until he burns it off.”  
  
“Oooh... I’m all  _tingly_ ,” laughed Fai. He grabbed at Kurogane’s shirt, fingers twisting in the linen, then tipped his head back to look up into Kurogane’s face as his grin turned catty. “ _You_  make me feel all tingly,” he clarified, and this time his voice was lower, huskier, dropping several octaves and gaining a velvety edge. “I didn’t know I could feel like that... but then I  _always_  feel like glowing when I’m around you.” Fai’s eyes were drowning dark, summer sky falling to a deep and burning blue, glowing like the edge of the horizon on a stormy night. “I like it,” he whispered.  
  
Something hot twisted in Kurogane’s belly, a quick stab of sensation he was just as quick to disown. There was no way Fai even knew what the hell he was saying, let alone meant it; he shouldn’t take those words as any more than drunken babble, and he certainly shouldn’t act on it, no matter how hard it was to look away from those  _eyes_ -  
  
“You should take better care of your friend,” said the thin one waspishly, snapping Kurogane out of that gaze and back into reality with that thinly-veiled accusation. “Leaving  _a fallen star_  to wander unescorted in the Spirit Markets- are you  _mad_? There’s all sorts here, some of whom would  _kill_  to get their hands on that much stardust. Who  _knows_  what would have happened if he ran into poachers!”  
  
“He’s not my friend,” objected Kurogane, even as his hands tightened possessively about Fai’s arms, making the star giggle drunkenly. “He’s my...” he trailed off uncertainly. What, exactly, was Fai to him? He’d been asking himself that for several days now and then only answer he could think of was ‘important’, which really wasn’t that helpful. He already knew that much.  
  
“If he’s  _yours_ ,” said the straight-faced one slowly, “then you should keep him by your side.” There was something subtly disapproving about the tone of his voice, a challenging gleam in those hooded eyes- as though it were a personal failing of Kurogane’s that Fai had wandered off on his own, as though the star needed someone to babysit him; as though Fai couldn’t take care of himself, as though he needed to be kept on some sort of leash.  
  
Irritation spiked in his brain. “He’s not my property,” growled Kurogane, just barely keeping a lid on the snarl that was building in his throat. “Fai belongs to no-one but himself.” There were no shadows in the corners of his eyes, no chill in his bones; he was nowhere near any demons of any kind, and the battle-madness was still quiet inside him... but it didn’t stop his temper from flaring up all the same, and Kurogane’s fingers ached to curl around the handle of his sword. “I won’t have you speak ill of him- say another sharp word and you’ll find yourself without a tongue. He’s not a  _child_ , he can go where he wants.”  
  
“I want to go with you,” said Fai quietly. He’d swayed gently forward, stepping in close; somehow, without even noticing he was doing so, Kurogane had brought his free arm down and around the star in a protective gesture that was almost an embrace. It felt far too natural to hold him like that, and Kurogane felt his fingers twitch awkwardly, feeling suddenly self-conscious.  
  
Fai’s new friends exchanged a long, slow look, the kind that spoke volumes without uttering a single word. Considering the topic at hand was probably him and Fai, Kurogane wasn’t exactly happy seeing it.  
  
“I think we may have gotten off to a bad start,” said the thin one eventually. “We don’t mean any harm- we were just worried. To see a star so weak and unprotected in a place where he would be easy prey...” he trailed off at Kurogane’s snort.  
  
“You haven’t seen him fight. He’s anything but weak- I’ve seen him take down legions of demons with barely a touch.”  
  
“Demons, yeah,” said the stoic one, eyes narrowing until there was barely anything left of them at all. “But not poachers. Starfire won’t save him from the sword and the net-”  
  
“Shizuka Doumeki, are you  _trying_  to frighten my guests?”  
  
The witch’s voice was soft and amused, but it carried across the courtyard all the same; Kurogane jumped, making  _Fai_  jump and cling closer, and the sudden warm flush of that body against him made him push the star back to stand unsteady on his own feet once more. The one apparently named Doumeki blinked, startled, a flicker of shock making its lazy way across his features as he bobbed his head in greeting. “Lady Witch.”  
  
Tomoyo brushed past Kurogane with all the grace of a princess, her skirts sweeping the stone and leaves stirring in her wake, waving off the bow both men dropped into with a giggle and a flutter of one dainty hand. “Stop that, honestly. I’m no lady.”  
  
“Miss Tomoyo, then, and it is good to see you.” The skinny one was still bowed low, the pack slung over his shoulder rattling and clinking in a series of glassy noises when he moved. “These gentlemen are your guests, then?” His eyes flicked upwards to Kurogane, but only one fixed on his face; Kurogane realised with a jolt that one blue eye, its shade pale and cloudy compared to the other’s deep and piercing blue, was clearly blind.  
  
Tomoyo bobbed her head genteelly. “Of course, and how remiss of me not to introduce you both. Kurogane, these gentlemen are Kimihiro Watanuki, a stormcaller and alchemical engineer, and his partner Shizuka Doumeki, a researcher on preternatural phenomena. Kimihiro, Shizuka- this young man with the thunderous scowl is Kurogane, lately of Clow and born of Suwa, and his fair companion is the fallen star Fai... whom I think you both have met even if I myself have not.”  
  
Fai hiccupped, still swaying on his feet. His eyes were glazed. “You can’t know my name, you haven’t even met me yet,” he mumbled, and promptly collapsed; Kurogane jerked forward with a start, snagging him under the arms before he could do more than tip forward, and hauled Fai in close even as he cursed under his breath. The star felt hot, feverish almost; heat burned through his clothes where that roiling light danced beneath his skin still, and the heavy weight of him trembled all along his lanky frame.  
  
“What did you do to him?” he snarled, and even he was startled by the vicious tone of his voice. Unbidden, one of his hands rose to cradle Fai’s head; soft hair trailed against his fingers as he sought to brush it away from Fai’s forehead, the pale skin burning under his palm.  
  
“He’ll be fine once he gets some rest, Kurogane,” said Tomoyo demurely, and the calm assurance in her words was enough to soothe his fears a little- not entirely, no, he wouldn’t be  _entirely_  happy with this situation until Fai was awake and standing on his own feet once more, but it was enough for now. “Kimihiro explained it best- Fai has simply been overloaded with magical energy. Having burned so low as he currently has, it was a shock to the system to receive so much power, even from a natural source such as lightning.”  
  
“He took a full five bolts,” said Kimihiro gravely, pushing his eyeglasses up on his nose. “That’s well over thirty jars worth, more than enough to keep a whole village warded for over a year or to take out a small horde of demons. If he were human, he’d be dead many times over- even knowing he isn’t and that he could not die from such power, it was still a sight to see.”  
  
“Well, I don’t care about any of that,” grunted Kurogane, bending down a little to better shift his grip; he looped one arm beneath Fai’s legs, pulling that lanky frame into his arms once more- and it felt like carrying him up from that crater all over again. “All I want is someplace safe to put him until he wakes up.” Fai’s head tipped against his shoulder, the fraying mess of his braid spilling soft hair over Kurogane’s arm, and when Tomoyo stepped closer, there was nothing Kurogane had to say as the witch brushed stray strands from his sleeping face.  
  
“I have more than enough rooms and beds to spare,” she murmured. “Fai is welcome to stay in this house until he is ready to leave- all of you are,” Tomoyo continued, turning briefly to glance in the direction of the two men Fai had been brought in by. “Kimihiro, Shizuka, that includes you as well.”  
  
Kimihiro looked at his partner for a moment, and it was another of those long, searching looks that made Kurogane feel vaguely like he was intruding on something private. “We’ll stay the night, if it’s no trouble Miss Tomoyo- not because we’re  _concerned_  or anything,” he added hastily, turning up that snooty nose and looking away with enough theatrics to make it obvious the gesture was staged. “I’ve never seen someone take that much of a charge and survive- I merely want to study the long-term effects upon his person.”  
  
Shizuka said nothing at all, merely nodding; it was he that lead the way into the witch’s abode, striding forth and forcing his companion to trot briskly after him, leather coat flapping and his voice ringing loud across the courtyard. “Hey! What kind of mannerless oaf are you? You can’t enter a house as a guest before the host! Were you born in a barn?”  
  
“And you, Kurogane?” asked Tomoyo softly, drawing his gaze away from the spectacle and back down to her worried face. “Will you stay as well?”  
  
Well, that answer was pretty damn obvious. “I’m not leaving him here to wake up alone, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Kurogane gruffly, his arms tightening around Fai without him even thinking about it. “Take me to some place I can put him down- he’s heavier than he looks.”  
  
Tomoyo smiled, and the expression was gentle. “Of course, Kurogane,” she murmured, brushing gently past him; her skirt swept the stone tiles of the courtyard and stirred the leaves that had drifted there. In the distance, Kurogane could still hear the two idiots Fai had dragged back with him arguing -well, one of them anyway, and he seemed to be doing just fine holding up the argument all on his own- and the clear ring of the chimes that lined the hallways.  
  
“Please, follow me,” she added and for a moment, her gaze lingered; in the depths of her eyes that same darkness that marked her as the Witch of the Moon flickered, knowing and sorrowful- but it was only for a second and Kurogane could not have sworn it had been there at all. It wasn’t important anyway; he’d made up his mind, and that was that- nothing any witch could say to him would change his decision. He would be helping Fai get home, no matter what it took, and the consequences be damned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had part four written for quite a while -ever since this fic was first written in 2013- so I thought it was probably time to post it up. Part five will come along eventually and hopefully finish it off. Thanks for reading!


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